More than Meets the Eye

Don’t you hate when you get something stuck in your eye? Not like a stick, but more like an eyelash. Honestly, I can’t imagine having something like a stick, when a thin little hair is painful enough. Part of why it bothers me so much is because I am a hard contact wearer.

Most people who wear contacts are lucky enough to wear the comfortable soft kind, the ones you can easily dispose of or replace. They are moist and comfortable, or so I hear. Me? Well, after years of being one of those people, I just couldn’t see anymore. My options were to wear glasses all the time and have mildly impaired vision or to go gas permeable and learn to live with the pain. My eye doctor at the time described wearing hard lenses as having a bottle cap stuck under your eyelid, only not that comfortable.

Honestly, hard contact lenses aren’t that painful. After a week or so of adjusting, I hardly noticed them anymore, unless my eyes were dry or I had something in my eye. The problem is, my eyes are always dry, and when they aren’t, I have something in them. I spend a portion of every day blinking like I have a tic or the creepiest wink ever. No one has ever said my eye thing is disturbing, but I have a feeling that is out of courtesy or just plain awkwardness.

What I am trying to say is, I always have something in my eye. It's not just an occasional irritant; it is part of my daily life. If I’m at the beach, it’s sand. If I am in the woods, it’s whatever the wind blew under my eyelid. And if I’m at home, it’s a hair. An eyelash, an eyebrow hair, it doesn’t matter. One time I even had a long head hair wrapped around my eye.

Think about that for a minute….it was wrapped around my eye. Do you have one of those boiled egg slicers? If so, you remember what it looks like when you stick a hard boiled egg in it and lower the slicer thingy, and right before it cuts through the egg, it has a bulgy appearance, the tension forming a meniscus on the egg's surface before it slices clean. That’s what the head hair around my eye looked like, at least to my other eye that was looking at it.

When I woke up this morning, my left eye was irritated. I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. This examination was pre contact insertion, so I had my glasses on. I can see with my glasses, but not well. It might be legal to drive in them, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Anyway, when I looked in the mirror, lo and behold, my left eye was all swollen and puffy, and not just my normal morning eye bag puffiness. This was allergic reaction swollen, the kind that would make strangers recoil, the kind that would make children point and scream, the kind that gets you whisked into an exam room at the ophthalmologist’s office.

I took my glasses off and pressed my face up against the mirror so I could see what was going on in my eye. I tugged a little on my lower lid and saw the end of a cat hair hanging out on my eye. Bingo, I thought. No wonder it looks like I’m having an allergy attack, because I am.

Yes, I am allergic to cats. I like them; they are furry and cute and strangely affectionate and clingy, and they bury their own poo. But my body treats them like the enemy if we get too close. Cat licks on my neck produce red welts like I’ve been whupped with a leather strop. An unfortunate and absolutely accidental cat scratch results in a raised weal that rivals the Continental Divide. And a hair in the eye, well, it looks like I need a battered woman’s shelter.

I pulled down on my eyelid to try to extract the offending cat hair from my eye socket, but it turns out it wasn’t a cat hair. It was a clump of cat hair, a hair ball, if you will. I didn’t go to sleep with that fur wad in my eye, but I sure woke up with it. How does one get something like that in an eye during a fitful night of sleep? Did I sleep-groom my kitties? Did the cat plant it during my altered state of consciousness?

You know that magicians' trick where they pull a handkerchief out of their pocket and it just keeps coming out, one after another, all knotted together like one unending colorful scarf? That’s what my cat hair wad was, a never-ending third rate magic trick. I just kept pulling out hairs, all knotted together. It was about a kitten's worth of hair, not unlike the tumbleweeds of cat fur that roll across my hardwood floors.

After sleeping with the offending clump of hair under my lid for a solid six to seven hours, thank you Jesus for the night’s sleep, my eye was swollen to the size of a giant squid’s. Have you seen one of those? They’re fucking huge.

And yes, I crammed a contact on top of it.

 

Disturbing the Peace

Every afternoon, I sit in the car line outside of the middle school and wait for my daughters to be dismissed. Lots of people do the same, and the line of cars goes all the way from the school parking lot down the ridiculously long driveway to the road. I like to play games on my phone or read a book while I wait because I have to get there a good thirty minutes before dismissal if I want to pick them up in time for after school activities. I usually settle in for the wait, engine off, windows down, hoping for a breeze in the late summer heat. I also hope for some peace during my downtime before the craziness of dance and guitar and piano and homework begins, but unfortunately, most of the time my wait is hardly peaceful.

You see, while I quietly and patiently wait for my kids, other parents with younger children in their cars also have to wait, but much less patiently. And we all know how little brothers and sisters can be; in a word, annoying. Some parents park their cars and release these younger kids to the sidewalk where they congregate and devise some sort of game to occupy themselves until the middle schoolers come streaming out of the building.  Usually it involves a lot of screaming and running around, with no parental supervision, since their moms and dads are busy with their cell phones. Yesterday, though, I thought I was watching a scene from “The Lord of the Flies.”

On one side of the school driveway are the parking lots and the sports fields, but along the other side is a small patch of forest, with pine trees lining the edge of the grass near the sidewalk. This little bit of grass is where the scene unfolded. It began with one kid, a grade school age boy with a faux-hawk, who flew from his car the moment it stopped. He picked up a stick from the ground and whipped it along the trees, making a violent grunting sound with every lash. He ran back and forth along the trees, making sure to whip each one. As he was flogging the trees, a tomboyish girl ran from her car and joined him. She too grabbed a stick and proceeded to beat the innocent trees. Her cries mixed with his grunts to create a disturbing melody, which was a siren’s call to yet more children who emerged from the safety of their minivans to join in. Three, four, five more kids, all beating the trees with their own limbs.

The girl impulsively threw down her stick and ran into the woods, the first kid brave enough to kick it up a notch. She came out with a rather large rock, bigger than a brick, heavy enough to require two hands to hold it. She lifted the rock above her head and with a mighty roar, threw it hard onto the ground. That act was all it took; the rest of the kids ran into the woods as she did and returned with their own giant stones. As one rock hit the ground, the other kids would try to pelt that rock with their own. Seriously, these were big two-handed rocks, and their noodly arms shook as they lifted them high overhead before throwing them down with enough force to chip away little pieces. I might have even seen a spark or two.

The faux-hawk boy, not to be outdone, ran back into the woods and came back with a thick branch this time. It was no twig; this branch was thick enough to mount a human head. The rest of the kids were up to the challenge and deserted their rocks in search of the ultimate branch. In a flash, they all returned and began beating the rocks and the trees with their fat sticks. I locked my doors.

As the frenzy of violence against nature escalated, one of the kids crossed the line. He took his rod and hit another boy’s branch. It was a declaration of war. Full out quarterstaff sparring and parrying commenced, a violent minuet on the school grounds. I looked around to see if any of these kids’ parents were going to put down their phones long enough to intervene, but alas, that wasn’t to be. 

Finally, the school bell rang and a mom called out to her son to get back in the car, right when the boy with the faux-hawk lifted his tree branch high overhead, ready to split the skull of another wild but weaker child.  One by one, the kids hurled their sticks back into the woods. Some even grabbed their abandoned rocks and heaved these too into the copse of trees before returning to their minivans and SUVs. I felt fairly certain that if they had more sophisticated weaponry, mace and clubs and burning torches, they could have successfully stormed the school and ransacked the building. They would not have taken any prisoners.

When I was a kid, I too liked to play with the plants and rocks in the yard outside my childhood home. But I used flowers and leaves to make a fake stew, or, after a good rain, a mud pie or something. I didn’t use our plants as weapons to engage in hand to hand combat with the neighbors. I mean, I’ve heard of a pick-up game of football, but not one of Mortal Kombat II.

As shocked as I was to see that level of violence, I was just as shocked to see all the kids were pretty cool with it. I could just imagine one of my kids joining in, trying to reason with the mob, telling them that playing with sticks could be dangerous, that someone could lose an eye, that they might damage the trees, or just standing there saying they should all calmly and quietly return to their cars and start their homework.

As the middle schoolers were dismissed and the car line began to move, I saw the faux-hawk kid hanging out of the  side door of his minivan as his mom drove, no seat, no seatbelt, high fiving all the older boys as they walked by. No wonder she didn’t have a problem with his violent display. Maybe she was scared of him too, and secretly hoped he would roll under the tires.

What's So Funny?

How old is too old to laugh at juvenile things? Whatever it is, I haven’t reached it yet. I enjoy bathroom humor as much as a six year old. If someone trips and falls, I am going to have to stifle a laugh before I can offer assistance. And don’t even think about naming the planet after Neptune in front of me, unless you want a barrage of blue gas and Klingon jokes, and who doesn’t? If something odd or socially inappropriate is going on, then count me in.

A few weeks ago, my family and I were enjoying a quick vacation at a beach near Charleston, South Carolina, with a good friend who had lots of extra place at his oceanfront rental. (Thanks again, MR!) We decided to go into the city our last night because seriously, it’s Charleston, and who needs a reason? We planned to enjoy a delicious meal at MR’s favorite restaurant but went to the Battery to kill some time before our dinner reservation.

Charleston is one of my favorite places of all time; I never get tired of looking at the same magnificent houses overlooking the mouth of the Ashley River, across from Fort Sumter. Between the houses and the seawall is the lovely White Point Gardens, where in addition to several historic statues and preserved cannons are some of the most amazing live oak trees. Those trees have survived a hurricane, a war, an earthquake, and a fire, and like Charleston itself, they somehow keep going in the face of years of so much disaster.

Walking through White Point Gardens, I imagine life in pre-Civil War Charleston. I can almost see proper Southern ladies out for an afternoon stroll, their slaves fanning them in a failed effort to keep them cool, their dogs frolicking under the shade of the live oaks, while their husbands and fathers lean against the railings of their porches, mint juleps in hand. The truth is, that park probably saw more pirates hanging and cannons firing than ladies strolling and slaves fanning. Never you mind; it’s my fantasy.

But dogs frolicking? That still happens every day, including the humid afternoon we paid the gardens a visit. We parked our car along the edge of the park and walked around, watching kids climb the pyramids of cannonballs and the many cannons that sit every so often along the square. We walked the entire perimeter of the park, taking in the view of the antebellum mansions on one side, the sailboats dotting the harbor on the other.  We peeked in windows and along porches, just enjoying the splendor of the historic district.

As we walked back toward the car, I noticed two majestic golden retrievers playing near where we had parked. Their owners were deep in conversation, not really watching the dogs at all.  I sort of glanced at them, registering their presence, but not really paying any attention to them. My younger daughter, S, however, who is in love with every golden retriever she has ever seen, was watching them intently.

“Hey Mommy, do you see those dogs? They are playing together. Look! Aww, they are so cute!”

I didn’t ignore her, but I was talking to my husband, and therefore did not respond fast enough for her.

“Mom, hey, Mommy. Do you see the dogs?”

Again, I didn’t answer her. It’s rude to interrupt people, and someone needs to teach her that.

“Mommy, look at the dogs!” she shrieked again.

So I did. To paraphrase a joke my grandfather used to tell, the one in the front was sick, and the one in the back was pushing it to the hospital.

I turned to my daughter and said, “Um, yes. I see them. Now I wish I didn’t.”

She turned bright red and said,” I swear they weren’t doing that a minute ago. I just thought they were cute; that’s all.”

My other daughter chimed in. “Gross. They need to get a room.”

“Or a kennel,” I added. The dogs were still going at it, humping away. If they were people, they would have already been arrested, or at the very least, YouTubed.

“Why won’t they stop?” S asked me.

“Don’t stop til you get enough,” I sang in my best Michael Jackson falsetto.

Which is when we all cracked up. I laughed harder than anyone, because I think I'm funny.

At that point, MR noticed the dog fornication and judged us. MR, who is still obsessed with “The Human Centipede,” had the audacity to say, “Oh, come on. Grow up, “ in disgust.

“Hey, she’s eleven,” I said to him. “If you can’t laugh at dogs going at it when you are eleven, when can you?”

He thought for a minute. “Hmm, you’ve got a point," and walked on to the car.

I, however, am not eleven. So what if I laughed?  At least I didn’t teach my eleven year old the expression “doggy style, “and believe me, it was a feat not to. They were dogs, and they were doing it doggy style, which to them is just “style,” I suppose.  Does it get any better than that?

Not for the dogs, it doesn’t.