Today at the eye doctor

This morning I went to the eye doctor at Wal-Mart. I'm one of the many without vision insurance so I feel $80 a year to get my contact lens annual is but a small price to pay.

I was the first appointment and everything was going smoothly and normally right up until the end when the nurse was checking me out. We sat across from each other at this little table. She had my file in front of her and was beginning to type in information from my charts. She was pretty, a dyed blonde Latina, maybe in her early 40s, no name tag. She was slowly punching in my name and address and she says to me,

"You good typer?"

My eyes were really dilated at this point and she was sitting fairly close to me so all I saw was a tan blob and white flashes of teeth when she smiled.

"Oh no--I'm pretty bad," I replied. "I have to look at the keyboard or I start messing up."

"Oh, Brandy," she said, rolling the r and making my name sound like an exotic isle. "You need to be good typer. If I could go back, I would just learn everything. Just everything. Okay, you are Brandy with y. I get program for my computer and I try to learn now but it's hard now. So I type like tap-tap-tap. Not good. In my home country I am nurse, and I have skills. Your address is 264 right? Skills like here would pay $35 an hour. But here, this place," (gesturing to the office) "they not pay so much. But it's a job you know? Ok, and what's your phone? You so young, make sure you learn everything. You don't need mens. Mens only want to put you down. My husband? He pays bills, he take care of me. But he don't appreciate me and my skills. Who I am. So don't depend on mens. You need it, you get it, okay? Now I print your receipt and you come over here and we check you out okay?"

"Okay. Thanks." What else could I really say?

My phone was underneath my purse and when we stood to go over to he checkout counter, she saw it.

"That is the Sidekick right? My son has that but the screen is broken--I want to buy it new. Are you selling?"

"Oh--actually, I'm not. I still use it." I smiled as if to say, If only you caught me on a different day when I WAS thinking about selling my cell phone.

"Okay but if you want to sell, you can come back and see me. You total is $88."


I still didn't get her name.