Countdown to 20/20

On Thursday I’m getting my eyes lasered. I’m not at all scared, I’m totally excited. Well, to be clear, I’m actually only getting one eye lasered. I apparently have obnoxiously large pupils which require me to get this totally different, non-instant-gratification eye surgery where it takes a while to get good vision, so I can only get one eye at a time done. It also has the added benefit of making me self conscious for the rest of my life about the size of my pupils.

I’m taking two days off work to recover. I don’t know how you actually “recover” from having your eye poked at, but I’m glad to have to time off to catch up on my sitting around and eating.
I made sure to request the time off long ago, but in this department, taking time off is like bringing the plague to work, so I had to keep reminding people. It was like “Good morning Kathy. I’m taking Thursday and Friday off.” Then, “How was your weekend, John? Remember I’m taking two days off.” I hope they get the hint, but inevitably on Thursday at around 10 I’ll get some panicked phone call at home (because I was forced to give out my home number for such emergencies) and it’ll be someone from my department, freaking out and asking how to do my job. Luckily I will probably be sound asleep with one eye recovering from being poked around with a laser.

Sidenote: Why is it that everyone tells me I’ll sleep a lot after this eye surgery? Jesus, how out of shape are these patients that sitting in a chair for 2 minutes and staring at a light wears you out? What kind of excuse is that? “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go lie down, I’m just beat. Today I had my eye touched for about a minute. Yeah I know, I can’t believe I’ve been standing unassisted for this long either.”

The other day I was in a meeting with my boss and I mentioned at the end “Don’t forget, I’m going to be gone Thursday and Friday to get my eyes lasered.” And suddenly this strikes up a conversation. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. So do you think it’s really worth the expense to get your eyes lasered?” “Yeah,” I said, “Think about how much you spend on contacts and contact related stuff and all the time you spend with them over a lifetime!” And my boss goes, “Well, I don’t wear contacts. So how much do you think you spend in a year?” And I’m like “I dunno, maybe $300.” He then whips out his financial calculator. “OK say you’d spend $300 for another 50 years of good eye sight. Now let’s assume an interest rate of 6%....” Oh god, how much of an accounting nerd do I work for? “OK, so let’s discount those cash flows back. OK so we get a net present value of around $5000. And you say this costs about $4500?” I nod, begrudgingly. “Well then according to basic finance and all economic indictors, you can’t not do it!”

I left his office mystified that that just happened, that a financial calculator was just involved in the decision over my two day vacation. I’ve got to get out of here.