Silver lining: Monocles are cooler than glasses

Continuing with yesterday's post about the probable complete loss of my right eye, now that I'm presumably a bit more composed, I'll say in M-'s defense that she had been supposedly coming over to give me a hug (which, to complete the ruse, was telegraphed by a call of " 'ug! 'ug!!") and she ostensibly just got a bit carried away.

This particular snake puppet is naturally made of pretty rigid plastic, including a potent little forked tongue that apparently comes factory-equipped with a hunger for fresh corneas. Well, I can assure you that this was one happy little snake, because he got his fill that day of his favorite flavor.

I had been sitting on the floor with the kids, so after the assault, I simply laid down with my hand over my eye, wishing awful, awful things on most of the world (nothing personal, by the way). J-, being a self-trained EMT as well as a teacher, calmly took charge of the situation by remaining on the couch and asking if I was okay between bouts of hearty laughter. I refused to answer, instead just laying there breathing slowly through gritted teeth.

D- then decided to try his hand at crisis management by leaning over my still-covered snakebit eye and asking (in a very tender voice), "You okay? Where does it hurt?" Even in that moment I recognized the sweetness, as well as the fact that through his previous injury experience we have programmed our robot well. However, in my pointless anger (you get used to this feeling after dealing with babies), the latter question seemed so colossally stupid that I couldn't bring myself to answer without undeserved sarcasm, so I just stayed silent like my mother taught me.

J- made sure M- said sorry (pronounced, as always, "Rah-zhee"), but that girl was remarkably jolly during the whole ordeal, due to the undeniable fact that she still had this awesome snake head on her finger, dripping precious drops of scleral fluid as it forever will whenever I close my eye.

This previously useless little goody bag prize had been blessed that day to discover its two Special Purposes within the same hour-- first to pounce upon all human eyes in reach as an attempt to level the playing field for the animal kingdom, and second to give great joy to 15-month-olds for whole minutes at a time (an eternity) while inspiring them to practice their maniacal laughs (I kid you not-- priceless). During these exultations, M- several times reached her new weapon towards the Baby Gods* in thanks and tribute, a la He-Man and his Power Sword, until she reached a height of about 31 inches, at which time she fell over backwards from stretching too far.

Much of the charm of this display, and almost all of the visuals, were lost on me at the time as I lay there quietly suffering, or I might have been able to capture some pictures. I'm a little wary, as you might imagine, of reuniting these two powerful entities in the interests of re-creating the moment, because I fear she might quickly scuttle up my front, sit on my shoulders, and repeatedly stab me in the left eye to finish the job she started this weekend. Or at least that's the vision my Dream Shaman showed me sometime last night, just before I woke up to the eerily appropriate sound of D- crying.

So that's the story of what happened-- I can discuss the fallout (regrets, memories, plans for the future, etc.) tomorrow or the next day, and then I'm sure I'll be done talking about my eyeballs for the rest of my life. Or at least the next month or so.


* Copyright hereby claimed for all derivative works and toy/book/other licensing. Any similarities to The Muppet Babies are entirely coincidental though probably advisable.

Editor's Note: The saga continues, believe it or not, here.