I am beginning to believe that during this pandemic I have a
subconscious goal – and that is to totally ruin my eyes.
First of all, my big-screen TV died, so I borrowed the small
one from the bedroom and hooked it up in the living room. The only problem is,
I’m still sitting the same distance away as I did when watching the large TV,
so this one looks about the size of a lunchbox. Trying to read translations,
captions, or those news items that run across the bottom of the screen have
become about as easy as trying to find ticks on my all-black dog. I have done
so much squinting lately, the crinkles around my eyes have turned into trenches.
Then the other night, one of my old classmates and I were
reminiscing online about the “good old days.” So later that same evening, I dug
out four of my journals from way back in my high-school days and started reading them. Ten
hours later, I still was reading. Let’s just say that reliving all of the
“joys” of my high-school crushes and how they were so “cute and dreamy” until
they snubbed me and then became “creepy and smelly,” fascinated me more than
any best-selling novel. I just couldn’t stop reading.
Unfortunately, the morning following my reading marathon, I
woke up with my eyes resembling two oysters on the half-shell…bright pink oysters.
And my eyes really hurt – kind of like someone had poured battery acid into
them. But the worst part was everything I looked at was a total blur.
I went online to see what I could do to alleviate the
problem, but the problem was I couldn’t see what the advice was. My eyes
were so out of focus, I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to soak my eyes…or soap
them.
Desperate, I dug out some eye drops from the back of my
bathroom cabinet. They had expired back when Bush was president, but I used
them anyway. Had I put plain water into my eyes, they’d probably have had about the same
effect, but they did clear up my vision slightly, so I rushed back to the
Internet to read more about eye problems. Comparing the photos of “sore eyes” online to my own eyes, I narrowed my problem down to either dry eyes,
blepharitis (inflammation of the eyelids)…or both. Each of the problems had a
similar solution, however – to add a couple drops of no-tears baby shampoo to a half-cup
of warm, sterile water, then, using a clean washcloth, to gently wipe the eyes
three times per day. Lubricating eye drops without preservatives also were
recommended, as was staying sufficiently hydrated by drinking plenty of water.
I groaned. Water was something I had been forced to cut back
on during the pandemic because the stores were limiting the purchase of bottled
water…and my well water, which is contaminated with arsenic, isn’t drinkable
until I win the lottery and can afford to have my reverse-osmosis purification
system repaired (it died right about the same time as my big-screen TV). Therefore,
by rationing my water intake I’d inadvertently added yet another contributing
factor to my “let’s see how many ways I can torture my eyeballs” list.
By then, it was after 6:00 PM and I wasn’t about to go shopping
for baby shampoo and eye drops. My eyes, however, were begging for relief as
they continued to puff up and sting. So out of desperation, I turned to my
neighborhood group’s Facebook page for help. I mean, I had seen a few people
pushing baby strollers on my road at one time or another, so I explained my eye
situation and asked if anyone might have a few drops of baby shampoo they could
spare. I said I would respect the social-distancing rule, so the shampoo could
be left out in their mailbox for me.
The responses were amazing. I was offered not only the baby
shampoo, but also eye drops, special eye-wipes, compresses and more. A
half-hour later, I took a walk around the neighborhood and collected a nice
stash of items from everyone’s mailboxes. It never dawned on me at the time
that if a cop had happened to drive by as I was reaching into all of my
neighbors’ mailboxes, I could have ended up being fitted with some shiny new
bracelets and charged with mail tampering
All I can say is the baby shampoo was a godsend. It soothed
my eyes, took down the swelling and made my eyes smell like springtime in the
Rockies. And the lubricating eye-drops relieved the feeling that my eyes
recently had been taped wide open during a desert sandstorm.
Since then, I have been trying to be much kinder to my eyes.
I’m drinking more water and I’m not doing any more marathon reading.
Now all I have to do is decide which is more important to
save up for first – a new big-screen TV…or the repairs to the filtration system
for my well water.
That’s really a tough one.
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning humor columnist and the
author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The
Common-Sense Approach to Dream Interpretation." Contact her at:
sillysally@att.net.
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