About that sawdust in my eye

So it goes a little something like this – I'm kerfing out some endgrain on a 2-inch thick slab of wood. I don't really know whether kerfing is the right woodworking term here and in my old age frankly I don't care.  Making channels on two slabs of wood to join them, inserting a glued piece in their respective slots.

So. An operation like that sends up tremendous poofs of sawdust and 24% of it bounced off my face, 1.6% of it deciding to homestead in my eye.

Safety glasses would have been good. A ham and cheese sandwich also would have been nice, if I'd had any ham. Or cheese. Or bread. I did not.

Entonces, the next day my eyes were a little red. To be expected. Day after that, one eye was really really red. I shot some old contact lens solution in there. Held my head under the faucet to flush it. Borrowed a fire truck and shot myself in the face to flush it out and relieve me of this speck.

Yeah, well, I had pink eye. Conjunctivitis, if you're in polite company.

Features of this condition include looking like a horror show, waking up to your eyelids welded shut by caked boogers. It's, uh, not great.

Talked to a teacher friend while this was going on and she related how a student of hers had a bout of the pinkeye and the word around the classroom was that she had got it because someone had farted on her pillow.

Egads.

I was reminded of Frank McCourt's description of his eye troubles as a youth, a condition he says made his eyes resemble "two piss holes in the snow," I believe is how he phrased it.

My new best friend is a little bottle of fancy eye drops that made it go away. Thanks, little bottle of eye drops.