So I’ve been thinking about it, and I think that I would like to propose a ribbon campaign.
I know what you’re thinking: really, another one? And I understand—after all, the mooching season is already well upon us (if you lined up all of the upcoming silent auction tables they would stretch from here to that condo in Telluride that I always bid on but never win). I also know that there are so many ribbon campaigns out there already that ribbons are either going to have to start pulling double duty (actually, triple and quadruple duty, as most of the “good” colors have already been taken numerous times), or people are going to have to start digging deeper into their paint boxes (as far as I know, puce is still available). But the thing is, I have a cause that really needs some support, and even though it’s for something that we probably will never be able to stop, I still think it would be nice for those who suffer from this condition to have the same comfort that all of the other beneficiaries of ribbon campaigns have; that is, to one day be driving down the freeway and see, on the SUV ahead of them, a magnetic ribbon that says “thinking of you.”
So what, you may ask, is this condition I’m going on and on about? Well, I’m referring, of course, to the heartbreak of pink eye.
Or rather, the heartbreak of being the mother of someone with pink eye, because as every mother knows, unlike ailments that actually debilitate your child, pink eye does nothing to incapacitate or otherwise slow down your child at all—all it does is keep them from going to school for 24 hours after they’ve had their first dose of antibiotics. (I’m sure this rule is responsible for more prescription fraud than all other drugs combined—“Keep your oxycontin and percocet, if I don’t get that scrip for antibiotics right now my kid is going to have to spend another day at home.”)
It’s terrible. And of course, the worst part about it is that never, in the history of pink eye, has it struck everyone in the family at once. Instead it comes into the eye of one child, migrates to the eye of another one, and then another, and then, when it seems to be gone completely, comes back to the first child again.
This cycles around and around until finally, through measures so draconian the Patriot Act blushes to see them (“All right! Everybody line up and get your eye drops!” “But I don’t live here . . .” “Shut your mouth and open your eyes! NOW!” “But I’m just the UPS guy—ahh! Put down the taser! I’ll do it!”) the outbreak is contained.
At least until the eye drop administer gets it herself.
The last time it swept through my house I got it after everyone else was (temporarily) over it, and so instead of going to the doctor myself I just opted to use some of the drops left over from the 55-gallon drum that we had ordered during the height of the infection. Big mistake. St. Conjunctiva doesn’t like it when you don’t make her the proper offerings (she likes to be worshipped at the copay altar, just like St. Otitis and St. Impetigo).
She punished me for my neglect by making me allergic to the generic eyedrops, meaning that I ended up laying my copay sacrifice on the altar not once, but three times. Pay me now or pay me later, that’s her motto.
Of course, all of this would be solved by the ribbon campaign. Or at least acknowledged. And really, that’s all we mothers of pink eye sufferers want: to be seen. Even if it is through red, puffy eyes.