Imagine me, sitting at a table eating a cheeseburger and reading a book. It’s been a long day, 10 hours so far and I finally had time to eat lunch. Just 30 or 45 minutes to slow down, read to get my mind off work and some food to refuel.
Suddenly I feel something stab me in the cornea. Eye pain. It stings. Grabbing my head I think, “Is this it? Is this how I go out? Eating a cheeseburger surrounded by strangers eating their chicken nuggets” I gotta tell my wife and kids I love them one more time. I flinched with a tiny cry out loud. It’s as girl-ish as I want it to be because I’m comfortable in my skin and with who I am. So, “Eeeeeeek”, I cry wondering whats happening. Then I see it. Lying there on top of my fries is this huge slightly yellowish crescent moon. It’s a foreign entity amongst my fires. Off to my right I hear, SNIP-SNIP. My mind goes a million places trying to place how this arrived in my food. My eye begins to water. Perhaps it was stuck in my eye all this time and just now popped out. “Yeah that’s it, it’s mine.” I say. Synapses are firing to find mental and emotional words of comfort and safety. It’s gotta be mine. Again, to my right I hear SNIP-SNIP. I turn my head, my hand cupped over my eye so it doesn’t fall out, and look at the people sitting at the table nearby. A voice inside my head cries out, “Noooo, it was mine!! Not a strangers!!” Now I cant take my eyes off of them.
There at this table I hadn’t even noticed because I was doing so well with my “me” time sits a lady and a child. She is settled in for a good while. You can tell by the way she has her 3.5 coats tucked around her. In fact, she’s so comfortably settled she is also clipping her fingernails. Why is this lady doing this? Shouldn’t she be doing this in The Walmarts? I mean you’d expect it there. Not where you eat your food. Not where I eat my food. Oh and look, now she’s filing one that didn’t cut just right. That’s good. This way there will be strange lady particulates of varying sizes whizzing and floating around this establishment. Boring not only into my eyes, but o also my soul via my bronchioles.
I’m not sure what to do now. I’m not sure how to feel. I start wondering how long before I lose my eye. Will I have to have it removed so it doesn’t cause the rest of me to get gangrene? Will other parts of my body fall off as well? With a snakebite there would be venom to suck out. No, that’s not right, You use a tourniquet don’t you?
I hope I’m one of those people that look good with an eye patch. Maybe it will detract from my portly good looks and give me the ruggedly handsome vibe. I don’t know what to do with my food. Part of me wanted to go set it on her table and say, “you win, field goal was good” and leave. Sigh. Well, I will definitely be stopping at The Walmarts to pick up an eye patch on the way home.