7 | Confusion | 8/18/22

 If there's one thing I'm rather ashamed to admit about myself, it's that I can't handle myself well under confusion. If something just doesn't sit quite right in my head (or at all), I'll get extremely stressed, sometimes to the point of breaking down. Unfortunately, I have to face confusing situations often, but thankfully, most of them end in comprehension and no tears being shed. Of course, it's not like people don't get stressed under confusion, it's just the way of how I handle it that I'm embarrassed of. Any normal person would probably start getting fumed, or step back to think about something for a moment. I rarely do the latter. But alongside anger, immense confusion will usually end in me completely giving up and crying about it.

Unfortunately, that's what happened yesterday. Twice. One a little more entitled than the other.
In my last post, I mentioned how I went to the opticians to get my eyes checked. I'm unsure if I mentioned that I would be getting new glasses, but after some time of waiting, I was able to go there to pick up my new glasses. It got delayed a few times due to unrelated issues, which already stressed us out. But then, yesterday, we finally had the opportunity to go pick them up.

I'm not an adult, yet. I don't quite understand the complications of insurance and all that. When my dad told me that he was improperly charged by the opticians for more than he actually had to pay, he was going to confront them about it while I got my glasses. We both silently assumed it would be quick and painless.
We went to the opticians and I was instructed to go to another section of the building to get my glasses. I talked with one of the opticians a bit, she gave me my new glasses, made some adjustments, and then I was good to go. My dad, meanwhile, had to wait for a receptionist to finish up with another customer before helping him. So, he came to sit beside me until then. Picking up the glasses themselves only took about five minutes.
Once we were done with that, we went to wait by reception again. About a minute later, she calls us back over and my dad starts detailing the problem. Basically, he wanted to get some of his money back that was improperly charged from him by the opticians. Seemed pretty simple to me; they just overcharged him a few dollars and they'd reimburse him. That was, until the receptionist started bringing up a different insurance company my dad had never even heard of before. She was saying that that insurance company would be able to reimburse him. My dad insisted that he wasn't sure the company would be able to help him. The receptionist then explained that he checked one of the paperwork's boxes incorrectly, which was the cause of the insurance problem (supposedly) in the first place. Once all of this came up, I started getting completely lost. All I had to do was listen, and yet I couldn't understand what was being communicated. Neither could my dad, apparently.
The conversation between them started getting heated. Once I noticed the receptionist got a little snippy, and my dad responded with a pretty harsh tone, I started to get a little scared. Finally, my dad just gave up, told the receptionist that "we won't be coming back here, we'll find another opticians", and stormed out of the door. I followed him hesitantly, since I was rather scared of this sudden eruption. I may have misheard, since I didn't look back, but I believe I heard the receptionist say "do you still want me to write down their contact information?" to my dad just before the door closed behind us.

I was a little shaken up from the experience, as my dad told me to go in the car because he "didn't want me to see this". Of course, I assumed he'd go back in there and give the receptionist a big piece of his mind. I raced into the car, mumbling swears. I proceeded to lay back in my seat and cry. I was thinking about everything else in my life that was going wrong at that time, and I called myself a burden for causing the situation in the first place. And unrelated situations.
Finally my dad came back and explained what happened in more detail. Essentially, the receptionist refused to help my dad get his money back, although she was acting like she WAS helping him. He decided that he couldn't show his face there again because he had caused a bit of a scene. As he explained his side, I felt more angry towards the receptionist. He also comforted me, as he noticed I had been crying, which I greatly appreciated. All in all, not a great experience, but certainly not a boring one. Lots of people seem to like my new glasses too.

However, that wasn't the end of that day. A smaller occurrence happened a little later in the day. I was dreadfully bored because I didn't feel like writing or drawing anything, and none of my friends were online. I decided to go downstairs and play my Wii, since I recently got back into a Mario Party 2 phase. Of course, it's not the easiest thing to figure out how to switch to an old console from a modern appliance. I struggled for about ten minutes figuring out how to switch the TV's input so that I could access the Wii. Eventually I got so frustrated running down dead ends that I just slouched on the couch and cried a little more. I sat there for a few moments, trying to clear my brain and get rid of all my frustrations and stress. Finally I returned to the TV and, after another five minutes, discovered I had to switch the volume setting to access the Wii. Of course, that was the last thing I expected to work, but it worked, and I don't care anymore. I played Mario Party 2 for an hour or so and had a blast.

Yesterday was perhaps the most intense day in my entire summer. We also got our microwave fixed, which caused me to wake up early due to all the noise. Despite that, I didn't hate yesterday. It was eventful, and that was what I had been looking for. Unfortunately, not much else will happen until school starts up again. So, until next time.