Ever used contacts?
It's quite the experience. :-)
Let me give you a mental picture...
So, it's Halloween. I dressed as Rogue, from the X-men, it's a comic book, I know, I'm a nerd... I didn't realize that until yesterday. So I've got white spray paint in my hair, a leather jacket, and a pair of gloves. But my eyes are brown (Rogue's are intensely green). So, I decided it would be fun to have green eyes for the day and when I got to work (at the mall) I walked over to the shoe store to get myself some green contacts (I know, the shoe store??? some how that didn't dissuade me from trying it... oh well, I can still see just fine). I get back to my store and I think to myself, "Hm, I'm not being very smart here... I've never used contacts before and I've never been taught how to use contacts... the package says not to use them if you don't have experience...hm...". I decided to nonchalantly ask my coworkers if either of them use contacts, secretly hoping that one of them would give me some instruction... no such luck. I did get a warning that the colored ones take a bit to get used to.
So I take myself and my little package of green contacts into the dark and dingy bathroom. Hands washed and dried, contacts sanitized, deep breath, contact on the finger, open eye, insert contact, remove finger and contact--- wait, no, the contact is supposed to stick to my eye, not my finger!
Ok... so... I guess I'll just start over... nope... still not sticking...
Then Val Pal comes in. "Your finger has to be really dry and the contact has to be really wet" she says, "and use your other finger, it works better." She watched me struggle for a minute and then said, "Try tilting your head either back or forward, that may help, but if you can't get it, I'll come and do it for you, sometimes that's easier."
Oh, right, somewhere in between the dialogue I managed to drop it. On the floor. Of the dark, dingy bathroom.
That can't be good.
Val said it would be fine though, if I put it in the sanatizing solution and let it sit for a little while.
The audience may be shouting at me, "No! Stop! Bad idea! You need your eyes!" but remember, I was being awefully ignorant on this day.
So, she leaves, and I try it again... still no luck and Val comes back to do it for me.
"Sit on the toilet so I can get to your eyes." she instructs. I look down at the toilet and she chuckles.
There's not toilet seat cover.
So I perched myself at the edge of the cleanest looking part of the toilet seat and prepared myself to have someone stick their finger in my eye.
Even Val had trouble getting it in. By the time she was done with the one I had tears streaming down my face (my eye really didn't like having something in it). I wasn't in pain at all, my eye was just doing it's very level best to get that contact out! So Val told me to take it out and she'd wash it again, just to make sure that there wasn't dirt on it. Sure enough, there was a tiny speck of dirt on it and when it was reinserted into my eye I was fine, no tears, no uncontrollable blinking. "That was way easier!" she declared. (Isn't God creative! my eye is smarter than my brain!) The second one was just as easy and all of the sudden my shift was up and it was time to go home. I left with many thanks to Val Pal for her assistance and a feeling of greater kinship with my coworkers.
Oh, and green eyes.
:-)
