the Dalaverse

Oh my god this is the perfect illustration of my current mental state.

I got glasses when I was eight and contacts when I was thirteen. I have spectacularly bad eyesight - without help I can see about four inches in front of my face before things start to blur. About three years ago, opticianal science finally improved to the point where the astigmatism in my right eye could be neutralized with disposable contacts - but it still falls short of treating the worse astigmatism in my left. Therefore, I have one permanent contact for my left eye, which I put in solution every night (its mate sits in saline all the time), and a pack of Dailies for my right eye.

I forgot to tell my mother that I was on my last strip of Dailies, so I ran out yesterday without a refill. This isn't a big deal, as I usually just wear my old right contact for several days until I can get the new Dailies.

Except it was a problem tonight. I took my left contact out first as is my wont, put it in its basket - then took the right one out and tossed it into the trash like I do the disposables.

Let me be clear: I can safely remove and store my contacts under any condition. I don't need light, I don't need a sink, I don't need a flat surface. Even when I am ill, even when I am dead tired, even when I am falling down drunk and have just spent thirty minutes hugging the toilet (Tina, you will remember this as the night of the rum-and-Cokes and DMC drinking game), I can still stop swaying long enough to poke my finger in my eye and pour out the contact solution. Even when I literally cannot remember having done it in the morning. When I first got my contacts I sometimes forgot to put the basket-holder back in its bottle, leaving my contacts to partially shrivel overnight, but I have not done this in at least eight years.

Now do you understand?

All is well, thankfully. I realized what I'd done while I was brushing my teeth, spat all over the mirror, and dropped to my knees next to the trashcan. Fortunately nothing much goes in my trashcan except old contacts, so it was easy to pick out the one that was still flexible. Also, it landed on top of the saline box I had just thrown out, so that's about as sanitary a resting place as could be hoped. Now it's quietly fizzing away beside its luckier mate, no worse for wear.

Still ::shakes head:: I'm amazed at myself. That is the first dumb contacts thing I have done in nearly a decade.

I am so going to bed. Right now.