My cones are not normal. I had no idea. My husband pointed out my flaw. Look, Phyllis. I looked.
That day standing in the bathroom,
he said, I like them but you do realize they don’t match. What do you mean they don’t match? I took a closer look. I pulled the blind open and stood in the
natural light. Are you sure? He laughed.
Phyllis, it doesn’t matter to me but I thought you should know.
I suppose I always knew but never
stopped to think about it. Never wanted
to admit it. My face flamed in
embarrassment.
I snatched the shower curtain off
the rod. After all, I had only draped it
there so I could show my husband how coordinated everything looked. The grey towels−the grey shower curtain. Only the curtain wasn’t grey, was it. No, it was brown. In the store it looked grey. The same as the valance across the
window. It wasn’t grey either. It was somewhat blue-ish.
Recently I decided to do a makeover in our open concept
bungalow. I painted the bathroom when my
husband refused to get involved. When he
saw my shaky paint line along the ceiling and the wavy baseboards, he took on
the task of doing the mammoth kitchen project and the guest bedroom. Whew!
From the guest room my husband
called out to me, anything but green. Okay, I shouted back as I left for the paint
store.
There it was. The proof was on the wall in broad
strokes. It was grey in the store, I
muttered. His silent accusation brought
me to a higher pitched defence. I know
it looks green now but I’m sure...My voice trailed off.
I always acknowledged my problem with dark colours. I came home with a pair of black dress pants
for my husband that the tag defiantly sku’d as navy. Of course, everyone knows that dark brown,
black, and navy are nearly indistinguishable anyway.
It was more than that now.
I no longer trusted myself when it came to choosing colours. I thought of the living room curtains I
brought home last spring. They looked a
perfect match for the sea green accessories.
At home they transformed to a brilliant turquoise.
Marv prepped the kitchen for
painting. Pick up some paint Phyllis, he
said. Gritting my teeth and grumbling
under my breath, I swung the door closed behind me.
This isn’t green is it, I asked the young recruit at the
paint shop. The ring in his lower lip
quivered but he kept a straight face.
You see, I floundered, I have a little problem with certain shades. Nah, this is yellow, he said. No, I certainly don’t want yellow. Is this one yellow, too, I asked, peering at
a paint chip? No, that’s peach. Frustration was mounting. I wondered how he would describe me to his
friends. A dizzy old broad came in for paint today and kept asking me the
colours.....
Exasperated, I left the store only to return the next day. This time I brought home paint chips for the kitchen. My husband eyed them. Yes, the top portion will be a medium grey,
and below the white chair rail will be espresso brown. He nodded his approval.
It was a relief to find a person at the paint store to help
me with the colour selection. He
understood when I explained my affliction to him. No, it’s not the young person with the lip
ring. He seemed to avoid me.
Unable to shake my frustration, I turned to my trusty laptop and Googled! The first thing I discovered is that colour
blindness is rare in women. Only .5% of women
are born colour blind to 8% of men. Various
web sites confirm that my condition is not colour blindness, though it sure
feels like it.
Further research resulted in a believable explanation. Here it is folks. I have Protanomoly. Self-diagnosed, of course. But it fits.
I have a problem, not with most primary vivid colours, but with the
saturation of colour in various shades. The
way I understand it, the retina is made up of rods and cones; rods being responsible for night vision and the
cells responsible for colour perception are the cones. Cones are located in the centre of the
retina. People with normal cones are able
to see all different colours and subtle mixtures. Aha!
Now I know for sure. I don’t have the write cones.
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