Some days I wonder what I’m doing here. If I’m not a danger to others, I’m a genuine peril closer to home.
I was just putting my eyes in. My contact lenses, that is. I try not to talk about the wooden one, the legacy of a naval battle in the Bay of Biscay. It’s not a new experience with the lenses. Not now. Mundane even. Trivial. Habitual. The days of blinding revelations have long since gone. Except that rather like grappling a jellied eel - just when you think you have a good grip on things, there’s a surprising wriggle that leaves you looking stupid.
I put my right lens in. No trouble. Usual routine. Open pot. Rinse. Place on fingertip. Drip a drop of solution in. Pop it in. Blink. Like a Swiss clock. Without a cuckoo. Precision. But without any winding up. Entirely uneventful. No fuss.
Left eye. Left eye. An entirely different story. A vast flock of cuckoos, with an axe to grind and powered by an enormous coiled spring.
‘What’s that?’ I wondered to myself, peering into the mirror, lens poised on finger.
‘There’s a lens already in there.’
‘How could that have happen?’
I assiduously take them out each night. Always. Even on those rare occasions when I’m incapable of removing my own socks and wake to discover I’ve slept in the outside bin.
‘This is ridiculous.’ I thought. ‘I have made a mistake.’
A mistake? Me? Could such a think be possible? Surely not.
‘I can’t have made a mistake, I have the lens, the lens on my finger.’
Still, there is was. Clear as day. The rim of a lens.
I touched it. Definitely a rim. But it wouldn’t move.
My inimitable logic kicked in. I had a lens in my hands. The one I had removed one last night. I had a lens in my eye. Balls. Two eyes, three lenses. How long had this inserted lens been there? There must have been two stuck together when I opened the new packet last week. That would mean it had been in my eye for five days or more. Arse.
I took the lens off my finger and replaced it in the pot.
Right. I have to get this one out.
It would not budge. I drew my finger across my eye. Across the edge of the lens. But I couldn’t get it to shift. It was sore. Hardly surprising, I reasoned, it must be welded to my eyeball by now.
I emptied the bottle of solution into my socket. Loosen it up. Unstick it.
I rubbed it again.
It was beginning to look quite red. It wasn’t looking good.
I referred to the source of all infallible knowledge and wisdom: the Internet. I squinted at the googolplex search results. It was quite clear what I had to do, even if I could see it clearly - dowse with lots of solution and persist.
Ten minutes later, an air of mild panic had set in. I had dowsed. I had rinsed. I stroked. I rubbed. Pinched. Pulled. Scratched. Scraped. It would not come out.
I considered using tweezers to grab the edge of the stubborn sucker.
By now my vision was pretty much down to one eye. I have to admit to feeling pretty glum. And rather worried that I might never see again. Half never see. Goddamn stupid lenses. Lens.
Finally, and some might say a tad late, I admitted defeated and decided to call my optician. Not being sharp, hot or valuable, I had assumed I would be safe. Apparently not.
“Come in straight away” she urged. A sense of urgency from any professional always worries me, especially from those engaged in some form of health care. To me it ranks alongside smiling politicians, helpful estate agents and customs officials wearing gloves – it is never A Good Thing.
It wasn’t a contact lens. It was my eyeball. It wasn’t the rim of a soft plastic disk, it was the protective film of the sclera. It wasn’t becoming more obvious the more I fiddled, it was swelling in a desperate attempt to save my eye from permanent damage.
With undeserved biological mercy, there’s not long term harm.
Some would say I look quite dashing in my pirate’s patch. Some would say I look like the loser from the Battle of Hastings. Some would say I am a bloody fool.
