Well, today has been a trial so far, but it's worked out ok, I think. This will contain TMI regarding toilet habits, so consider yourself warned.
First, up a 6AM to work. Part of the reason I hate this is that I'm on a conference call with maybe six other people who all have tasks, but their stuff depends on mine, and once work starts, I'm committed until we're done.
Well, my body has a very regimented waste removal schedule, which goes something like:
6AM - up
6:01AM - pee
6:06AM - poop
<Do morning stuff>
6:21AM - poop
<continue on with day>
Always, always, I poop twice in the morning! Always!
Except when I have to do this 6AM shift, because it's up at 6AM, on the computer and working by 6:05AM, and then I'm on until 8:30AM or so, if I'm lucky.
That throws my whole body off. The whole time I'm trying to work and concentrate, my butt is saying, "Hello...? Why have you forsaken me? You *really* shouldn't be clenching me so much, you're just making me angry...and you won't like me when I'm angry!"
And I miss my morning tea.
So that was the morning, and also while working, the dog is pestering the hell out of me because she wants to eat and she has to wait an hour for the wife to get up and do it.
Then, off to the eye doctor to get a temporary contact lens for the wife to wear for two weeks between eye surgeries.
Sure enough, as I expected, the "tech" out front could not grasp the concept of a temporary lens and had set MrsCO up for a full contact lens exam. I explained it again, same person, third time, and she scribbled some stuff down and we waited.
When we finally got in to see the doc, she looked at the paper and said, "So...you're wanting to replace your glasses with contacts?"
No. No. Not at all. No.
We explained to her what we wanted, which she understood perfectly, and said, "Well, that's not what it says here, but that's ok."
Then she took some quick measurements, checked her vision, grabbed a pair of trial contacts and handed them over.
"There you go, try 'em out today, then take 'em out tonight, and just wait until your surgery before using them again, though you can just leave 'em in if you want, but you're not going to be able to see perfectly with them. They're just to get you close."
Perfect! How hard was that? And the best part? The exam price ($100) included the lenses.
And then the talking set in:
"I can see here...and here...but over here I can't!"
"When I used to wear contacts every day..."
"I don't have a normal-shaped eye, you know."
"The ground looks closer."
And on and on and on. Every thought that entered my wife's head about contacts, glasses, her surgery, vision in general...came out of her mouth."
"I can read that sign."
"I can't read that license plate!"
"I wonder what my phone looks like?"
We had to drive across the street for some groceries, and in the five minutes it took to do that, I must have heard 25 things about eyes and contacts and glasses and seeing.
She sat in the car while I went in.
Remember when you had a cassette player in the car and you'd shut the car off mid-song and leave the tape in? When you started it again, it'd play from where it left off?
That's what this was like:
"Have these changed my eye color at all? I think..."
<Goes inside, shops, comes out, puts groceries in back, sits in front seat>
"I don't know if these feel right. Do they look like they feel right?"
I don't even know what that means.
"She said these are the same prescription in each eye, so they're interchangeable, but I don't know..."
"Maybe I'll wear contacts again once this is all done."
"Why don't you wear contacts?"
Then she told me she wanted to go to a produce barn/market thingy. Mind you, she didn't particularly want anything, but she wanted to stop. This is a place that sells fresh local produce, old-fashioned candies, saspirilla, that sort of thing.
I hate making multiple stops, especially on a weekend, especially when there's no reason to go, and especially while listening to 1001 Things About My Eyes. But we went anyway.
Well. Surprise. It's not a produce place anymore. Oh, it *thinks* it is, but they put in a cafe with a patio, and they were selling "small plates," and most of the produce was gone, but they had plenty of artsy-fartsy prints for sale, and a full fucking bar in the back.
Basically, they'd turned it in a wine-and-cheese place, but with craft beer and finger foods, and just enough trucked in artisanal potatoes and speckled eggs to allow themselves to rebrand as "The Farms At Low Valley."
We bought nothing and finally got home. Thank god.
Came in, and the dog was going nuts to eat, plus she had upchucked some water/fluids and that needed clean up (she's always done that), and I had to put the groceries away.
I was doing all that while the wife went in the back to take out her lenses.
I *just* got all that shit done, sat down, and no sooner than my ass hit the couch, MrsCO came running down the hallway crying.
"I CAN'T GET THEM OUT! I CAN'T GET THEM OUT!"
"Jesus Christ! Stop crying! Why are you crying?! Calm down!"
Then I told her to squirt some saline in her eyes and get them wet. The whole time she was screaming bloody murder.
Finally, I got tired of that and told her, "Look! They're contact lenses! They're not going to kill you! You're not going to go blind! Calm the hell down, take a breather, and take the damn things out or get your butt back in the car and I'll drive you all the way back there so they can take your damn lenses out for you, but make up your mind because it's Saturday and they close early!"
Then she popped then right out: "Haha, that wasn't so bad."
So now we're all good, but it was sure a crappy trip getting there.
I can't tell you how much I'm dreading the next month, because it's going to be a continual riff on, "My eye feels funny. My eye doesn't feel right. Something's wrong with my eye. My eye. My eye. My eyeeeeee!"