Poke eye, start winking
Posted by Women with something to say on Feb 1st, 2008
By Lori Borgman
Just because I’m winking at you doesn’t mean I think you’re cute. It means I have a new contact lens. That’s right. Just one.
Who can afford two? Putting kids through college isn’t cheap.
I finally got fed up with hunting down glasses each time I wanted to read something.
One day, I thought, what I really need is to shove my reading glasses right into my eyes. Then it dawned on me, they’ve already done that and they’re called contact lenses.
Problem is, I have an aversion to sticking things in my eye. Not just my finger, anything really, knee, elbow, toe, chopsticks, clothes hangers, Boeing 747s.
What did you always hear growing up? “Don’t run with those scissors, you could trip and poke your eye.”
“What’s that? You took a toothpick from the restaurant? You have a toothpick in the car! Are you crazy? Somebody get that away from her! She could poke her eye!”
And then someone invented contact lenses and soon everyone was poking themselves in the eye like it was a natural, everyday occurrence and something was wrong with you if you didn’t want to wear contacts and poke yourself in the eye.
Never had the desire. Until now. Until 6s and 8s looked alike on clothing tags, until I couldn’t read a magazine, prescription bottle or food label without doing a three-room search for glasses. So I decided, hey, why not just poke myself in the eye?
The eye doctor’s assistant watched me struggle as I attempted to put a contact lens in one eye for reading. I managed to stick it to my lower lid, my upper lid, my eyebrow, the side of my nose and even lost it on the floor. Finally, the assistant knocked my head back, pulled my eyelid open and wham! There it was – the world in 10-point Times Roman.
I grabbed the nearest magazine, which happened to be Golf, opened to a back page with small type and began reading aloud. “If you think you might benefit from Viagra –"
I snatched a Good Housekeeping ... “place the pork loin in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish ...” I now pull tags from the back of people’s clothing just to read the size and fabric content. “Size L, 100 percent pima cotton. Made in Jordan.”
I read menus in darkened restaurants as a hobby. “The chipotle quesadilla comes with melted cheese, onions, grilled jalapenos and your choice of beef, chicken or pork.” Is that poetry, or what?
And the phone book, don’t get me started on the phone book. Actually I already did and I’m in the Bs.
It’s great. All except the winking. I find myself frequently blinking my eye with the contact. The bag boy at the grocery store, who also plays in a punk rock band, thinks I’m hot for him because I winked when he asked, “Paper or plastic?”
At church on Sunday, the teaching was on marriage and family. There I sat, making eye contact with the minister and winking.
I have become the community hussy.
It’s not all bad. I flashed a parking stub to get out of a pay lot and the older man in the booth said I was close enough to 30 minutes that I didn’t have to pay.
“Why, thank you,” I said.
He just smiled. And winked.
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