You Don’t Want to Drive Next to Me

IT STARTED WITH A TWITCH. A solitary twitch of my left eye in the early morning hours, letting me know that my cornea was not very happy about the Acuvue contacts (Advanced! With Hydroclear, no doubt) that I had just put in.

But that doesn’t matter. I’d just finished my makeup. Not about to smudge my eyeliner just for the sake of comfort. I’d already spent ten minutes searching for that little tube of black raccoon paint, I was not about to spend another ten minutes reapplying it. Not that I had the time to spare anyway. The alarm clock got my extra safety cushion of time this morning.

So I lied to myself. I squinted, did a few quick blinks and convinced myself I could see perfectly fine. What’s the blur on the side of the road? Surely not my contact. No. It’s the dirt on my sunglasses. Or on my car. Or a bad reflection of the sun.

I’m a good self-liar.

When I got to work I adopted the same  ‘I can see just fine’ mantra that I had on the drive over. Every few minutes my vision would fog over while looking at the computer screen, so I’d blink, rub my eye and then look out the window. Viola. Insta fix.

Around 10:00AM I came to the realization that it’s not so easy to pull a quick contact adjustment during a company meeting. It’s like picking a wedgie in public  – sorry, blame the radio for that comparison, they have a Hanes No Ride Underwear sale going on at Wal-Mart apparently – all I mean is, if it’s in a public place, people will notice any movement. So there I am, in the middle of a large meeting rubbing my eye, dabbing at the corners, tugging at the lashes. And for some odd reason my nose starts running in a knee-jerk type of reaction every time I touch my eyes, and I realize I have to sniff.

I opt to quit breathing instead.

That lasted about two seconds. I pause until someone is talking, duck my head and let out what I thought was a quiet sniffle. Not even the full blown, loud, elephant trumpet-like snort that my body is telling me I need to do. Just a “this only will work for two seconds and my nose will run again” type of sniff. Turns out the talker was posing a question and not a statement. My sniff was perfectly synchronized with the post question silence.

And now people believe that I cry during meetings.

Think this could get better? Oh yes. It gets so much better. I run to my car to get a little contact solution. I admit it.  SO MY CONTACT IS A LITTLE DIRTY, OKAY?! And now, after cleaning it, it’s a tad bit torn.

T-O-R-N.

Ripped. Deceased. Cut right down the middle. And I’m standing in the bathroom, literally holding my vision in my hand and realizing that without this little clear dome I am almost legally blind. You could be right in front of my face and I wouldn’t be able to recognize you. Which also means I am one contact away from not being able to drive anywhere. So next thing I know I’m flying down the freeway, blaring Beyoncé and squinting trying to get a full 180 degree view with one eye. And I start doing this thing. Don’t deny it, you do it too. I’m closing the good eye to see how well I can see out of the bad one. But I don’t just do it once, no. I keep at it like it’s suddenly going to fix itself. The clincher? I’m doing the same thing AT THE SAME TIME with my car alignment. Letting go of the wheel, feeling my car start to pull to the right, nudging it back over, letting go, drifting, moving back, while closing one eye, going blind, opening the good one. Rinse and repeat.

I finally realized I need to be more understanding of other people. To the person at Wal-Mart with the instructional note on his windshield from me stating “Learn how to park!!” I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you were half blind and had a bad alignment too. Besides, you were probably just there for the Hanes No Ride Underwear.