The Pretend Contact Lens

We all do stupid things. It’s just that mine are more pronounced because I share them. And, well, because mine are extra stupid. But, none of my little shenanigans can compare with what I did when I was in junior high. Oh, hell, I was probably in high school.

No, it wasn’t the time I heard a commercial about how peanut butter takes gum out of your hair and I promptly took gum out of my mouth and put it smack dab in the middle of my long hair. That was stupid, for sure.

No, it wasn’t the time I untied the meanest dog in the neighborhood because I felt sorry for him being on a short leash, sitting in the dust by his pathetic doghouse, and he promptly wrecked havoc on the little chldren playing in the street. Mad Max was on the loose. He bit countless children. Oops, my bad.

And no, it wasn’t the time when I wore fishnet hose with saddle shoes. I still cringe at that thought. Who the hell told me that that looked good? Because once I got to school, I sort of noticed that my style was in question.

No, it was the time I decided that I wanted to wear contact lenses. Well, I didn’t really want to wear them, like for eyesight. I wanted to put one in my eye just to see what it felt like.

There was a problem with that, as in the fact that I didn’t need glasses. My eyes were a perfect 20/20. I had no idea what the hell that meant, but obviously it was a gauge for the clear bright eyes and the blind as a bat people, like my younger sister. She wore coke bottle glasses. She also had a lazy eye. She was screwed. We all could tell when she was getting tired, because that one eye would start drifting over to the middle. Well, it drifted that way anyways. Hey, little sister, you’re veering to the left.

So, I didn’t need glasses. But, I wanted them. I thought people looked cool in glasses. I mean, Marilyn Monroe wore them.

I didn’t know why kids got made fun of for wearing them. Kids with braces were called “Brace Face” and kids with glasses were called, “Four Eyes.”  I always thought that was mean. There were kids who would come to school, wearing their cat eye glasses, only to put them away in their case and squint their eyes at the board all damn day. Hell, I thought that looked stupid. “Four Eyes” sounded so much better than “Stupid Squinty Head.”

So, yeah, I used to want to wear glasses. I thought they  looked neat.But,  I wasn’t a fan of the cat eye glasses that my sister had. Why the hell would anyone want to wear cat eye glasses?

But, in 2012, I have a pair of cat eye reading glasses. I knew one day I would be wearing glasses sooner or later. I have about five pairs of glasses lying around my house. And the main pair is worn like a headband when they aren’t down on my nose.

So, this was the early seventies. Contact lenses were fairly new. I didn’t know anyone who had them during this time period. They had just come out. I knew that my sister would need them. Once her lazy eye stopped drifting over left of center. But, I was intrigued by contact lenses. I didn’t have the luxury of the internet to google information about them. But, I did listen to the radio. And that’s where I heard commericals about them.

Unfortunately, it was the same damn radio that told me to put gum in my hair.  My friends and I would sit out on my front porch during the summer evenings and chat and listen to my portable radio. They used to have all kinds of radio spots. They’d have Hints from Heloise type help suggestions. And being curious, I listened to them all. The new ones about contact lenses really interested me. I wanted to try to put one on my eyeball.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. First of all, remember, I didn’t need glasses. Second of all, I didn’t know a soul who had those new fangled contact lenses. I would just have to improvise.

Oh, and improvise I did. What the hell was I thinking?

So, you know how little bags of candy are sold in stores? I am descriptive challenged, but I will try my best. My mom always had a bag of those God awful round pink chalky candies that smelled like Pepto Bismol. I think they were called Canada Mints. Ok, so, up at the top of the packages  of many candy bags there is a punched hole of sorts that is used to hang the bags in a line. And sometimes that hole still has the “chad” attached.

Well, I found my contact lens. I saw that bag of my mom’s precious Canada Mints sitting on the coffee table, and the little round plastic circle was still hanging where it was supposed to be punched out. Again, like a hanging candy chad, but you know, circular.

So, I heard the commerical on the radio. I don’t remember who was with me, but I went inside, took the little plastic circle thingy and went into the bathroom. I turned on the light, stood in front of the mirror, and put the damn thing on my eyeball.

What the hell was I thinking?

Uh oh.

Not good.

Not good at all.

The damn thing felt like it was an inch thick. I couldn’t see anything out of my eye. It was immediately hurting. My eye started watering and that’s when I started the dance.

The “Oh shit, get this damn thing out of my eye” dance. I had no idea how the hell to get this little son of a bitch off of my eyeball. I really screwed up this time. I was going to lose my eye, I was sure. I would have to wear a patch and be called “Patch” for the rest of my life. I would have to learn to say, “Arrrgh.” I was going to be a God damn pirate. Notice how my cursing has increased dramatically. Now was the time to unleash all the curse words I had ever heard. One I did not want to yell, but did when I could not get the little plastic circle thingy out of my pretty blue grey eye.

“MOM!!!”

Yeah, it was that serious.

Well, my mom finally got the thing off of my eyeball after yelling at me to quit dancing around. Now that I think about it, I sort of looked like Stewart on Mad Tv. I flailed around just like him.

I ended up scratching my eye. It hurt like hell. In the end, I hoped that that would be the most stupid thing that I would ever attempt. I wasn’t going to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel like I had planned for my adulthood. I would no longer plan on hitchhiking just to say that I did it. And I wasn’t going to untie Mad Max, killer German shephard any more. I was done doing stupid stuff.

Oh, young Vickie, you didn’t learn your lesson, did you?

High school Vickie, ready for her next stunt.

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