A Bug. In. My. EYE!

Ben and I were out walking Scruffy last night after we got home from work. I don't usually go on those excursions, but it had cooled down a bit after the rain we got, and it was a generally pleasant sort of evening. We walked side by side by side and everything was going fine.

Then I realized there were these nasty little gnats flying around everywhere. One even flew into my mouth. Gross, I know, but who hasn't had that happen? Just spit it out and keep your mouth shut.

And then it happened. One of the little buggers flew into my eye. My eye! Not just ow-that-bug-hit-my-eye but ew-ew-ew-that-bug-is-stuck-in-my-eye! I abandoned Ben and Scruffy and started running down the street towards my house, covering my one eye and squinting considerably with the other to prevent a second eye-invasion. Let's not even talk about how ridiculous I looked to any neighbor that might've been watching.

Tearing open the front door, I ran to the bathroom, pulled out my contact, and stuck my open eye under the running faucet. I figured the same rules for rinsing a household toxin from your eye might apply in this situation.

And here's just the thing... what else besides rinse it out and blink a lot can you DO when something gets in your eye? Not much! You can't exactly stick a q-tip in there and get it out... as far as I know you're not supposed to poke anything into your eye, or even rub on it for that matter (as Heather often scolds me). I was left perched on the bathroom counter with my face a few centimeters from the mirror holding my now burning from tap-water eye as open as I possibly could. And though I could not see it, I KNEW that bug was still in there, up on the top of my eye. Ben peered inside my upper eyelid with a flashlight (yeah, that was bright) and insisted that it was gone. FALSE. That bug was still in there! At this point my imagination went into overdrive. What if the bug was carrying a disease? Would I have to go to the ER if I couldn't get it out? OH MY GOD WHAT IF IT LAYS EGGS IN MY EYE.

The last thought was enough to send me over the edge, and I (predictably) started to cry. And as I looked into the mirror at my swollen and bloodshot eye, I watched as the evil demonic brutal invader of my eye, a tiny gnat bug, came tumbling out in one of my tears.

And that, my friends, is what happens to me when I go into the wilderness. And, this was just my neighborhood, which is quite civilized. Can you imagine the kind of stuff I might encounter and be forced to endure should I have to go into the REAL wilderness?!?! And it does, people, it does. I did, at one time, enjoy the outdoors, and in the right circumstances, I still do. I liked being outside in Colorado (except for one specific bug related incident - detailed here in my work blog). But good grief, if I can't even walk my dog down the street without a gnat invading my ocular space, there's no way I could be expected to survive the real outdoors without suffering serious insect-inflicted damage.