This column is usually written on Monday mornings; given the “special” nature of my family, ideas are generally not a problem–although, every now and then, an entire week will go by without any ideas at all. That was why, as I went to bed on a Saturday night not long ago I found myself in the unique position of wishing for an idea sometime soon. As they say, be careful of what you wish for: the very next morning I woke up with pink eye.
Of course I got it from my son, Clyde, who had been sent home from daycare the week before with a slightly red right eye: one antibiotic prescription and 24 hours later he was back at school, none the worse for wear. As for myself however, things played out a little differently: my eyes became so puffy and swollen that my husband started calling me “Rocky” and saying “Cut me Pauly, cut me” whenever he saw me; it soon became obvious that, yet again, what had manifested as a minor childhood ailment in one of my children was destined to become a major adult trauma for me.
If only I had remembered what had happened with my last bout of childhood illness I would not have been so surprised this time around: a few years back, when Clyde brought home a case of impetigo, not only did it put me in the hospital for three days on IV antibiotics, but it also caused my face to break out in nickel-sized pustules. (It is perhaps a testimony to the fact that old dogs can learn new tricks that my husband, upon seeing enormous whiteheads covering my face, limited his comments to: “Um, did you know? You’ve got a little something right there.” It’s good to know that seven years of husband training had not been in vain.)
Even with that preview, however, once again I was not prepared for the startling and immediate effects of another “benign”childhood illness, not the least of which was the effect it would have on other people. Take, for example, the first sign of the coming storm: a pair of bright red eyes. While I discounted these visible symptoms as a somewhat trivial inconvenience–certainly nothing that would stop me from picking up the food for Clementine’s upcoming birthday party–I neglected to foresee the effect a pair of the brightest red eyes this side of a Cheech and Chong movie would have on other people, especially when combined with the pushing of a shopping cart full of Sweet Tarts, Pringles, chocolate bars and tater tots. Of course I ran into someone I knew–on her way to teach Sunday school, no less–and of course it wasn’t until she started to walk away that I made what must have been for her an immediate connection.
“Wait!” I shouted after I had realized what she must have been thinking. “I’m not stoned! I have pink eye!” Surprisingly, she just kept walking: if anything, I think she walked a little faster.
It got worse. As the day progressed my eyes went from being just red to red, watery and gunky. (It was at this point that even ten years of husband training failed him, and my husband said, “Um, did you know? You’ve got a little…my God, that’s disgusting.”) By the time the guests for Clementine’s party had arrived I looked so awful that he wasn’t even trying to fake it anymore, and in fact was talking openly about getting a digital camera so he could sell pictures of me online. (“There’s fetishes for everything, right?” he kept saying. “Surely there’s some pink eye porn site out there that would pay big bucks for these babies.”)
As I went to bed that night humiliated and miserable, at least I knew that come the next morning, a Monday, I would have plenty to write about. And I would have, too, if only for one little thing: by the time the morning came around, I could no longer see the keyboard.