Tomorrow? Marker Safety Classes

Let me just stop right here. 20 minutes? Really? Why do I say such lies? If I was already in my car and there was no traffic, 20 minutes would probably be about right. But instead, I had 3 kids parked in front of the TV without shoes or jackets and absolutely no desire to pack up and drive across town. It was only with much grumbling and threatening that I managed to get them out the door. Once I had them strapped into the car, I still had to contend with rainy weather and idiots who don’t know how to drive in rainy weather. Oh, and Friday rush hour. I could’ve called and rescheduled but the idea of spending even a day with my daughter all germy and contagious and therefore spreading her nastiness to her brothers or, even worse, me had me hustling through the city to try and make it. I was late, of course, but they still let us in. Whew!

So back in the exam room, the doctor asks Sassy a bunch of questions. Does it hurt? Is your eye itchy? Do lights bother you? No, no, and no. Did you hurt your eye recently? YES. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Sassy, tell the nice doctor how you poked yourself in the eye yesterday with.a.marker. I have no idea how she did that since she was sitting on the couch quietly when it happened but that just proves she is in fact my daughter.

The doctor put some drops in Sassy’s eye and then some dye and then pulled out this small UV light. It made the dye in her eye glow like a neon highlighter. It was so cool I made her do it again so the boys could see and say things like, “That is so awesome!” Well, in addition to being highly entertaining, it revealed that she had a scratch on her cornea. A bottle of eye drops and we were good to go.

At the check out desk, we made an appointment to come back in a week and then, because I am one of those who are lucky enough to have no medical coverage, I pulled out the checkbook and held my breath. $102 and the donation of one of my kidneys and the bill was settled. And they want me to come back? Seriously? Hey, thanks for the free meds but unless Sassy’s eye is falling out of her socket or is oozing green slime, I think we’ll be okay without that “follow-up” visit.

The whole ride home we made jokes about how now Sassy could double as a night light as long as she could sleep with her one eye open. (Yes, we absolutely make jokes at each other’s expense.) Traffic was just as bad on the way back but I didn’t mind so much. I was just happy that I wasn’t going to have to quarantine Sassy so she wouldn’t infect the rest of us. That would’ve SO messed up my weekend plans.