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By Jerry Zezima

I have always believed that if you have an appointment with an eye doctor, you should show up late. When the doctor asks why you weren’t on time, you can say, “I couldn’t find you.”

This will let him or her see — with the aid of prescription glasses, because eye doctors invariably wear them — that you are in the right place and will probably need a pair of specs yourself.

That’s why I was late for my first appointment with Dr. Brian Cho, an optometrist who is nice, funny and, of course, bespectacled.

“Welcome,” said Dr. Cho. “Did you have trouble finding the office?”

“No,” I replied. “I live right around the corner.”

“Why were you late?” he wondered.

“Because,” I answered, “I took the red eye.”

Then I showed him my red eye.

“This is why I made an appointment,” I said, adding that I woke up that morning and was stunned to see in the bathroom mirror that the left lower portion of my right eye was the color of a fire engine.

Dr. Cho took a peek.

“You have a subconjunctival hemorrhage,” he told me. “It’s a bruise of the eye. How did you get it?”

“I must have poked myself while I was sleeping,” I said. “I was probably dreaming about the Three Stooges. I’m a big fan.”

“I used to watch them when I was a kid,” said Dr. Cho.

“Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!” I noted.

“By the way,” he added, “do you snore at night?”

“That’s what my wife claims,” I replied.

“Maybe she poked you,” the doctor suggested.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She’s too nice. Besides, she doesn’t like the Three Stooges.”

“Most women don’t,” he said.

“There’s no accounting for taste,” I stated. “At least I don’t have pinkeye.”

“That’s contagious,” Dr. Cho said. “This isn’t.”

He looked at my eye again and said, “It should be gone in a week or two.”

“The whole eye?” I yelped. “Then you’d have to call me Wink.”

“Do you have glasses?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “They’re in the liquor cabinet.”

“No, I mean do you have eyeglasses?” the doctor wanted to know.

“I have a pair I’m supposed to wear if I’m driving at night,” I responded. “But I don’t need them unless it’s raining and I can’t read road signs.”

When Dr. Cho saw that I had brought them with me, he said, “Let’s see if you’re a man of vision.”

He gave me a series of tests that did not, unfortunately, include the standard eye chart, which begins with a big E at the top, followed by increasingly smaller letters, with FP on the second line, TOZ on the third, and so on.

“I had it memorized,” I said.

“Not anymore,” said Dr. Cho, who had me look at a new chart through different lenses.

The verdict: I don’t have glaucoma or macular degeneration.

“Not bad for a guy my age,” I said.

“How old are you?” the doctor inquired.

“I’m 71,” I told him.

“You look 61,” he said.

“Thanks!” I chirped. “I guess your glasses help. All eye doctors wear them, don’t they?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“I’m 49,” Dr. Cho answered.

“You look 39,” I said.

“Thanks!” he chirped. “And you’re not even wearing glasses.”

“How is my vision?” I inquired.

“You have 20/30 vision without your glasses and 20/20 with them,” the doctor replied.

“My previous optometrist said I had 20/40 vision, so I must be getting better,” I said. “Maybe I’ll end up with X-ray vision like Superman.”

“You never know,” Dr. Cho said. “But I do know this: If you want to avoid getting poked in the eye again, don’t dream about the Three Stooges.”

—Jerry Zezima

Jerry Zezima writes a humor column for Tribune News Service, which distributes it to newspapers nationwide and abroad. He is also the author of seven books, Leave It to Boomer, The Empty Nest Chronicles, Grandfather Knows Best, Nini and Poppie’s Excellent Adventures, Every Day Is Saturday, One for the Ageless and his latest, The Good Humor Man: Tales of Life, Laughter and, for Dessert, Ice Cream, all of which are “crimes against literature.” He has won nine awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists for his humorous writing.