Pinkeye

Okay, okay, I just read a blog I read regularly and the blogger complained that the "mommy bloggers" aren't really "writers" and a lot are out for cheap laughs (guilty!) and blogola (like payola, but for bloggers. I haven't caught that train). She made me feel a little guilty because I re-read my last post and the gist of it was how I secretly have NOT farted on my husband's head while he sleeps. That is the definition of cheap laughs. The fart joke, it never fails. Unless you're mature, which I'm not.

So today I thought I might try to redeem myself by posting something I wrote a long time ago that is more in line with "writing" than "blogging." (Maybe this will get me some blogola!)

Pinkeye


I am thirty-one years old and I have pinkeye. I had completely forgotten about this disgusting disease since elementary school, and now I have it.... in both eyes. It is extremely contagious; children have passed it from eyeball to eyeball for generations. My two-year-old daughter, Kira, got it recently, and the very moment the infection invaded her little body, she launched a nonstop campaign to touch my eyeballs. Could a seemingly sweet and innocent child be that devious? Judging from my runny, bloodshot, rabbit-eyes, yes.

Pinkeye is generally limited to children, much like static electricity. Go to any McDonald’s Playland, and you will see dozens of children with their hair electrically plastered to their little faces. Since I have had children I am a chronic sufferer from static electricity as well.

I brought the kids to the grocery store yesterday and discovered a new shopping cart. It’s just like a regular cart, except the front is a big toy truck. Two kids can fit into the cab of the truck and pretend to drive around the store. My five-year-old, Sam, climbed in and was nagging me to get going. While he was bugging me, I tried to install Kira in her side of the truck all while issuing instructions: “Watch your head..... bend your legs..... Kira, bend your legs......Kira, bend BOTH legs..... sit, sit down.... bend ... Oh, don’t cry, I told you to bend.”

When we finally got rolling I noticed that we were all full of static electricity. The kids’ hair was stuck to their faces and sticking straight up to the roof of the truck. They suffer with this from November until May, so they don’t even notice. I, however, am a little self-conscious. Every strand of hair on my head was stuck to my face. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t think the other shoppers in the produce department would have appreciated watching me lick my palms to smooth out my hair. So in the interest of sanitation, I looked ridiculous.

I soon discovered a design flaw in the shopping cart. The handle was metal with a piece of plastic attached with metal screws. Since I was so charged with electricity, about every two steps I got a horrible shock.

Another flaw was that I couldn’t reach the kids. When I stopped to get tomatoes, Kira hurled herself out of the front window like a lemming off of a cliff. She repeated this every time I stopped the cart. When I told my husband about it, he smirked and said smugly, “Well, why didn’t you buckle her in? I’m sure there are buckles.” I had to remind him that Kira simply cannot be restrained by conventional child restraints. In fact I don’t think there is a restraint of any kind that could hold her, not without violating some of her civil rights, anyway.

This shopping trip was quite a challenge. Between trying discreetly to get control of the static cling in my hair, scooping Kira up after she hurled herself from the front window of the truck in every aisle, and dealing with the constant, jolting, electrostatic shocks I received from the handle of the cart, I was happy to leave.

When we got home I unpacked the groceries and collapsed into a chair. I watched as my darling son discovered the scientific technique of shuffling his feet on the floor to charge himself up, then administering a painful shock to his unsuspecting sister. She looked so pathetically cute with her little pink eyes and her hair stuck to her head as though it was painted on. Sam shocked her a few times, then she shocked herself a few more times. Then I could see her taking stock as she realized that she had yet another weapon in her arsenal. She looked to me and saw me relaxing. I knew I would be her next victim, but I thought I could take it. However, not only did she shock me, but she managed to distract me with one hand, and shock me directly in the eyeball with the other. That was probably the exact moment I contracted the pinkeye. She did it all in one stealthy poke. Devious? Oh yes.