There used to be a time, back in the old days when I was young and nubile (read: not old and in possession of stretch marks), when the thought of being naked all morning was a good thing, and would lead to even more Good Things. That era has passed. Yesterday morning was indeed spent sans clothing, dripping wet and in various bodily contortions, but alas, I was alone, and the only thing I was trying to discover on my body was...my lost contact lens.
See, I have sort of a chip on my shoulder about my poor vision. As I've mentioned in the past, I've been wearing glasses since the third grade (which unfortuntely intersected with my years of wearing orthopedic shoes). My lenses are thick enough that I'm no longer allowed in the woods during fire season, lest an errant sunbeam spark a raging inferno. As a result, the only glasses I own are more than six years old, and I wear primarily contact lenses. However, I'm so cheezed off to have 20-700 vision in the first place (yes, your vision is just fine, you did read that correctly) that I cheap out and don't keep my prescription up-to-date and filled. As a result, I'm constantly running out of lenses, and running into objects, whenever something happens to my very last pair.
Which is the situation I found myself in yesterday. I normally shower with my contacts already in, because I otherwise run the risk of flailing about blindly and wrapping myself into the shower curtain like a shroud. However, little Ari, with her SuperPowers of Infection, had managed to poke me in the eye and give me yet another stye, so I decided to let the hot water treat it first and insert my lenses afterwards. Exit shower, spray curl stuff into hair, get out lens case, open right lens cap, and...FUMBLE. Followed by "vamoose". Naturally, I started out by searching the sink, then the countertop, then the floor. Nada. Next I checked every square inch of the towel I had wrapped around me. Still nothing. Had it perhaps fallen into my hair, which was at that moment drying into a crunchy, Jeri curl-like helmet around my head, not having had the benefit of being combed while it air-dried? I leaned into the mirror to check, but with my it-only-works-for-tweezing-eyebrow-hairs super up-close nearsightedness, my nose bonked into the glass before I could tell if there was a contact lens clinging to my ringlets like dew on a shrub.
With no luck on the sink, floor, countertop or hair, there was only one place left to check for the errant lens: my naked, shivering body. They say "men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses", but let me tell you, if I could describe how I managed to twist mself to check every inch of my skin for that stupid contact, I'd have guys lined up three deep to buy me dinner. Or maybe LASIK.
Still nothing. You always hear how hard it is to find a woman's G-spot, but I'll tell you one thing, my contact lens must be the smaller of the two. (Frankly, I think I still made out pretty well on this deal, because I can *buy* contacts. But I digress.) So I repeated my search, over and over, to no avail, and all the while getting colder, more ticked-off, and oh yes, TRAPPED in the house, since my really old glasses are not sufficient to me to see well enough to drive in. (They're just strong enough to enable me to find my contact lens case, provided I can find the glasses case in the first place.) All told, I spent over an hour on my hands and knees in that bathroom, which is really not nearly as clean as I thought I'd kept it, once I got 2mm from the dirt on the floor. I honestly don't know how I could have considered putting anything from that floor back into my eye, unless perhaps I was going to go for the "Buy one stye, get one free" look.
Finally, James got home, and for some reason didn't seem a bit fazed to find me looking like a cross between Roseanna Roseannadanna and Little RIchard (WHY?? Does my hair honestly look like this the rest of the time?), curls on end, tripping over the cats, and trying to to a web search for my optometrist with my nose tapping out the keystrokes. He drove me to the optometrist's office, which I hadn't been to in over two years, where I implemented my Free Contact Lens Strategy. Luckily, what I lack in vision I make up for with ingenuity and personal charm, so when the good doctor heard the words "I searched everywhere for that stupid lens, including underneath my breasts", she handed me a new one, no questions asked, despite my lack of current prescription.
I did learn my lesson, though, and had a new exam done today, and bought myself quite the pair of "sexy librarian" frames, to boot. The optometrist started chuckling again as soon as she saw me, and I got another free pair of lenses, plus a bunch of samples. The moral of this story? Sometimes, it pays to make a spectacle of yourself ;)
Happy Weird Wednesday!
Brilliant writing, as always!!! Roseanna Roseannadanna and Little RIchard indeed!
Am glad you a) didn't get pneumonia, and b) didn't panic and try to get to the optometrist on your own.
Posted by: Cornell | October 19, 2011 at 10:18 PM
That is a terrific story!
Posted by: liz | October 20, 2011 at 11:40 AM
Love your storytelling!
Posted by: Lily | November 16, 2011 at 03:54 PM
I can so, so relate to the virtually blind thing. This really cracked me up. "under my breasts"--heeheehee!
Posted by: Hope | January 27, 2012 at 01:57 PM
Oh, why didn't you share a pic of your "sexy librarian" frames here? Wew, searching for a lost contact is a painful thing to do… That's why people must be more cautious in holding, keeping, or cleaning one.
Posted by: Vincent Davis | February 27, 2012 at 01:00 PM
Dealing with all that trouble while looking for your contacts sure is hard and painful. I agree with Vincent. That "sexy librarian" frames glasses is really making me curious.
Posted by: Sam Times | March 06, 2012 at 09:42 AM