A Lesson to Learn

"Age is an Issue of mind over matter; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter!"  Mark Twain

     I have, throughout my life, been the victim of bizarre accidents...never anything too serious but somewhat weird! At age four, my sister hit me in the head with an iron fireplace broom...not her fault; we were playing "magic" before a large lilac bush; she was "casting a spell"; I walked right into the swing of the broom!!  She hid under the bed while I got stitches!

     At five, I tried to pet a strange dog...bit me on the arm...stitches.

   When I was seven, I swallowed a toothbrush bristle; it stuck in my tonsil (pretonsilectomy days) and had to be extracted by a doctor..."open wide and used those tweezers!"

     When I was nine, I fell off of a chair I was standing on (it had wheels) and broke my arm.  My mother, eight and a half months pregnant with my brother carried me to the car...the doctor gave her more attention than he did me!!!

     At eleven, I was opening a can of veggies with the "new" electric canopener on the wall; it slipped, I grabbed at the can to catch it...slashed my thumb...stitches!

     At sixteen, got my ring finger on my right hand slammed in a car door....reconstruction stitching to save the end of my finger...it worked!!

     I had perpetual scabs on my elbows and knees from crashes on my bike which I rode all over town.  (I grew up in a small town in the '50's...the true age of innocence!"

    I know there are many other little "incidents" but just wanted to set the stage for my latest strange episode!  Yesterday afternoon, we were having our poker bunch at our house for food, fun and friendship.  Just as everyone was getting here, the rains began...we all took our drinks and went to sit on the porch to watch the downpour.  A gust of wind came along and something blew into my right eye!  Really burned and felt like something inbedded in my eye.  I went in the house to try to wash it out...tried everything...my friends (the girls) gathered to aid me with advice and encouragment. (The guys continued to enjoy their beverages!)  Nothing was making my eye feel any better, so it was decided I needed to see my eye doctor.  After my gal friends fixed me up with an eye patch  (Arg-g-h-h-...that's my pirate imitation), my husband called the doctor...."if we could come right away, he could see me"...so he and I jumped into the car and headed to town. (We live about 20-30 minutes out in the country.)

    At the doctor's, he had waited for me...a really nice guy!!  But after examining my eye, he could not see anything but said it looked almost like an acid abrasion...and like I had rubbed sandpaper across my eye...I will say that was a really apt description of what it felt like, too.  He put drops in, covered the eye with a theraputic contact lens and made an appt for me to return this morning.  It was feeling MUCH better after he fixed me up so we headed home.

     In the meantime...we had left our friends to "play" with out us....we called them to let them know we were on the way.  After tracking down the phone (my husband had not put it back on the dock when he called the doctor), they told us all was well etc.  Of course, there had been rain going on and one of the stop lights on the way home was out so it took us a little longer to get home.  But when we did finally get there, our wonderful friends had the meal all set out (we had had everything cooked but not ready to serve), fixed the table, drinks, etc!!  So we ended up having a great evening (even though I didn't do very well at poker...but we play for very low stakes so no biggy!!)

     I woke up this morning....a light bulb went off in my head...I knew what had blown into my eye!!  It couldn't have been dust as it was raining, there were no bugs around or anything...but I was drinking a Margarita and I knew a speck of the salt on the rim had blown into my eye!!!  It was caustic, rough and dissolved so could not be seen!!  When I went to the doctor this morning, I told him what I thought and he, after laughing uproariously, agreed...what he hadn't told me was that he had taken a crystal-like substance off my eyelid when he was looking at my eye...and with the all over burning, etc.  it had to be the salt!!

    Moral to the story: do not drink Margaritas with salt on windy days!!