Thursday, March 02, 2006

Spazcity, Here I Come


After bragging to the ladies who brunch that I don't have problems with dry winter skin, I've suffered all week with a problem I can't ignore. My eyes are so dry that is painful and difficult to keep them open and focused. Needless to say, this puts a damper on the whole reading and writing thing. I've never had this problem before so I assume it is related to the dry artifical heat of the winter season, at least, I hope this is not afe related and that I am beginning that slow decline just weeks after my 25th birthday.

I put up with this for a while, but it is getting to the point where I can't work. So, it was time to get some eyedrops. Now, I don't use eyedrops, hate 'em. The problem is that I am a gigantic spaz. I'm the kind of person who, if I am standing in the copyroom with my back to the door and someone enters behind me and coughs, I will jump, scream and flail sending stapelers and White-Out crashing to the floor. Just imgine my delight at the prospect of hovering a giant dropper above my eyeball. What are the chances I won't blink? Not very good, I report.

First of all, I didn't even know where the eye drops aisle is in my local Duane Reade. When I found it tucked into a back corner, I felt like a drug addict. Because that is what drug addicts do. They buy eye drops, so people won't see their dopey eyes. In fact, if you see someone using Visine, there is a good chance they are abusing drugs. Please, feel free to intervene. Also, I didn't know what kind of drops to purchase. Finally I settled on moisturizing "Natural Tears". Natural tears? Don't you mean, artificial tears? Good lord, is there a sweatshop in some back room in L.A. where tiny children are made to cry into funnels? Do they show a montage of every scene in a Disney movie when the beloved parent bites it? Is that what I have purchased, sweatshop produced kiddie tears? Well, I didn't have much of a choice, now did I?

At home, I read the package and learned that for these drops to be effective, you must actually get some in your eye. And thus my one-person spaz adventure began. I supposed I could have knocked on the door of the GoodNeighbor and asked if he wouldn't mind holding me down while I went at the task, but I'd like to maintain some shread of decency in my building. Finally, I got about two drops in each eye after expending about 1/3 of the bottle. What fun!

Also, new rule: no more eating popcorn in bed. Sometimes I am disguisted by my own filth.

3 comments:

Clementine said...

Trauma prevention tip: Close your eyes, tilt your head back, and squirt a couple drops into each eye corner (try not to touch the tip of the bottle to your eye, though). Then slowly open your eyes--and voila! Eye drops safely in eyes!

Cupcake said...

Wait, so you want me to sqeeze the drops into my closed eye? You're blowing my mind.

Clementine said...

Yes--it's magic! The drops sit in your eye corners (the corners with the tear ducts, obviously) for a second, warming nicely, and you choose when to let them slide over your eyeballs by simply opening your eyes. No wasting half a bottle of visine; no traumatizing your eyeball with the Saline Surprise.

Let me know how it goes!