"I'll Try To Act Natural."

Good morning, it's snowing.  Again!

I almost couldn't tell, I didn't have my contacts in my eyes, and I wasn't wearing my old prescription glasses, so my sight was out of focus.

You've probably been there.  Since 30 million Americans wear contacts, and since you've had occasion to have blurry vision for one reason or another, you can understand the it, right?

Well, that got me to thinking about contacts.  Back in the late 60's when I was a young chick, I wanted contacts.  It was a vain thing.  I admit it.  I wanted them for looks.

Most everyone supported me.  Some had advice.  Aunt Bertha said, "Don't do like other people I've seen where they hold their chin up and look down at you and blink a lot."
I laughed, "Okay, Aunt Bert, I'll try to act natural."  And I did.

Those things, now remember the year, those things were hard.  It was like somebody cut a dime sized circle out of plexiglas and said, "Here.  Stick that in your eye!"  You see, these weren't soft lenses, nor were they the gas-permeables, these were flower-power-hippy days.  You'd blink a zillion times, too, until your eye developed a hardened rim to be able to bear them.

Yep, after 2 weeks of increased daily usage, you no longer thought about 'em.  Well...not until the day one dried out and you couldn't find it.  I was at my first real job, in the restroom, trying to put a drop of solution on it while it was resting on the tip of my finger when it got over-weighted and fell.  Shoot!  Where'd it go?  I looked under the underside of my hand, down the front of my outfit, all over the floor, and was just about to ask for help (because I was now blind in one eye) when I spied it.  Suctioned to the floor length mirror it was!!!!

"You onery thing, you mirror, what are you doing hanging on to my contact?  Wanted to double check your vision 'cause you couldn't believe I was Snow White?"  LOL.

The first time I lost one, I did ask for help.  Mom said, "Let me go get a flashlight."  She was a smart lady, because there it was glistening in the beams.  The other lens I lost in that same bathroom was never found.  Maybe I'd better correct that.  It was found 4 years later when they remodeled the bathroom, snug as a bug in the rug.

Mercy, but you didn't want to lose one.  Those things were expensive.  And if you lost one, there wasn't another for replacement, not until you went to the doctor and begged.  Begging ensued because they always wanted you to get an current exam as well.

Back then if you came into a room and there were people crawling around on the floor, using spy glasses and flashlights, they weren't playing a party game, or imitating the dog, they were hunting sister's contact lens!

Oh, oh, oh, and color was better.  Get brown to match your eyes?  Shoot, no!  Get green so it'd show up on the floor or the top of your shoe, silly.

Let me digress here.  I'm from a family of 8, 2 sisters, 3 brothers, a mom, and a dad.  Dad came with habits acquired from not only being in the army but also being raised with 14 brothers and sisters.  One thing he always did, and I never knew why, was to grab a clean glass out of the cupboard, swish it under the faucet of running water twice, then fill it to take a drink.

A beautiful, sunshiny week in August found us all going on vacation.  I'd forgotten my contact case.  No worry.  Put some water in the bottom of the motel provided plastic cup and voila' a makeshift contact holder.  Crawl into bed.  Next morning?    No contact to be found.  Cup's upside down.

What the heck?   Where's my contact?  DAD!  "Da-a-a-a-a-ad!!!!!!"  That was one blurred out vacation; period.

And this is the last, I promise, it's a stunner.  Newly married.  Darling hubby and I are playing with rambunctious firstborn son on the blue couch in our first 2 bedroom home with bright yellow wallpapered kitchen.  Son is bare-chested, giggling, and has just learned to run; he's been walking, but now he runs.   He runs all around the house, through the first bedroom, into the bathroom, through the second bedroom and back to us.  What fun!  He had infectious giggles.

Contact pops out.  Darling hubby and I do the usual, hold your spot, grab some light, start from top, check all surfaces to the bottom.  Okay, it's not on me, it's not on the carpet at the feet, time to check the couch.  Check darling hubby, too, since we were horse-playing, check the baby.  No contact.  What on earth?  It couldn't have gone far.  There's no cosmic hole of vaporization into which it could vanish.

Wait.  New thought.  Grab the baby again.  This time, check the diaper.  Back side, center spine, seam edge, there it was -- caught.  Shew!  Disaster averted.  Since the diaper was clean, it was a double disaster averted!  Get my drift?

If you hear the cry, "Don't move!"  and see search lights on the ceiling, you know someone in the house has lost a contact.  Grab an extra person, a flashlight, and for heaven's sake, "Stand still!"