There was a chunk of metal lodged in my eyeball. Fortunately, it was in the white, barely! Nonetheless, you could see it, and it hurt.
It must have happened in Metal Shop at school. I thought it was just a bug until I got home and looked in the mirror. I called my mom at work, and she made a doctor’s appointment for me. The problem was that I had to drive to Cleveland. Mom told me to drive to my grandma and grandpa’s house, and they would give me more detailed directions to the doctor’s office from there.
When I got there, Grandma took one look at my eye and said, “You can’t drive like that.”
She called out to Grandpa, “Cliff, you take him.”
My grandpa hated doctors and despised hospitals. Once, I heard a story about how he walked home in a hospital gown. The chances of him agreeing to take me were slim and …”
“Sure!” he said.
I told him he could wait in the waiting room, but he insisted on going in with me. He was in a chair, and I was on the examination table.
The nurse came in and took my temperature.
“Take mine too,” my grandpa said.
I looked at the nurse, she at Grandpa, and he nodded to do it with puppy-dog eyes, so she did. I got my blood pressure tested, Grandpa got his tested, and so on and so forth. After each test, he asked how he did. Not how I did, but how he did.
The nurse would smile and say, “Ju-u-ust fine.”
Grandpa looked pleased with his free checkup.
The nurse left for a while and then came back with the doctor. My grandpa was opening and closing the door, examining it.
“Is this mahogany?” he asked the doctor.
The doctor looked dumbfounded.
“That’s good stuff. Nice solid door,” Grandpa kept examining it while the doctor examined me.
The doctor and nurse said they had never removed a piece of metal that large from any eye without surgery. They began to explain the risks.
Grandpa walked over, edged past the doctor, and looked at my eye.
“Why, I see no reason we can’t just take it out here and be done with it,” Grandpa said that, not the doctor.
Lo and behold, the doctor agreed.
I almost needed a change of pants.
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun!
