It's all fun and games

Yup. You know that old adage... it's all fun and games until someone glues their eye shut. This phrase was coined by a dear friend, Stephanie Bucci, many years ago when I was living in Atlanta. Turns out that some people can get very funny and witty when someone they know actually does glue their eye shut. That someone was me. Go figure.

There I was minding my own business and attending to the reparations of some fake nails (a late 80's requisite for all respectable woman in the south - - or so I like to think), when a bubble of superglue blasted out of the tiny tip of the applicator and landed right in my right eye. Just moments before I had been multi-tasking by doing my nails and watching Raising Arizona with BOTH eyes. Now, I could only watch with one. I had literally glued the damn thing shut. Even after all these years, any mention of the movie Raising Arizona makes my eye twitch. And not figuratively.

After a run to the emergency room where I was informed quite soberly that there was really nothing that could be done - - I just had to wait for the superglue to decompose in about three days. I say "soberly" cause honestly - - don't you think that about 2 seconds after I pulled out of the ER parking lot there was much guffawing and snorting by the staff? But, wait I did. I waited three damn long days with my frickin eye lid glued tighter than a duck's ass. My eye finally opened. What looked like a 90% sucked to oblivion pineapple flavored lifesaver made of superglue was what was left. That little sliver of lifesaver/glue was also now the permanent home to every single solitary eye lash on my right eye. I was a right-eye-baldy for several months until the eye lashes had a chance to grow back in. It was freakish.

But, here we are nearly 20 years later and this little incident continues to haunt me. No, not because it ranks in the top ten stupidest-things-I've-ever-done - - cause honestly I don't think that that would even make the top 25. Yes, I've done some amazingly stupid things in my life. It haunts me because at least once a year since then I go partially bald in the middle of my eyelashes on my right eye. It's as if when all the eye lashes grew back 20 years ago, instead of shedding intermittently like the old eye lashes - they all are on the same grow/shed schedule. Once a year I have a freakish right eye issue. I am fairly adept at applying just the right amount of eye-liner to the baby-bum pink part where my eyelashes used to be. But still. It's depressing to be reminded once a year that you once had to wear a black eye patch for an entire week and listen to your coworkers make every single pirate joke there was known to man. Arghhhh (say that like a pirate...)

The reason that I bring this up is because I am going to a costume party this weekend. I am going to be dressing up like a Golden Girl on a Cruise. A fairly funny theme for a 50th b-day party - - but honestly - - aren't we already nearly Golden Girls already? But, our job is to make our old selves look older. I thought it would be funny if I went for the "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" make-up scheme to accompany my elderly-sparkling-nautical-themed outfit. To get the right over-the-top-can't-really-see-my-face-in-the-mirror-look, I though I would go and buy some false eyelashes.

So, I go to the store and buy some lashes (scary little spider-esque creatures when they are out of the package and not yet adhered to your eye). I decided in the interest of having my make-up routine down pat the night of the party, I would do a dry run and adhere the lashes today. In other words, I wanted to practice. What a fiasco.

Once I got beyond my fear of the glue (I tried to glue my fingers shut first thinking that would be the prudent thing to do before approaching my eye lashes with anything faintly adhesive. My fingers did not permanently bond with one another, so I felt pretty good about that), I smeared the little furry things with the enclosed bonding agent and then attempted for the next 20 minutes to get them to stick to my eyes. I now have a deeper appreciation for Liza Minnelli than I ever thought possible. How the hell she manages to get those springy monsters on her eyes every day without one of them continually flapping up on the ends like some bad keystone cops routine is beyond me. And while I didn't glue my eye shut (that was what you were waiting for right?), I did manage to poke myself in the eye repeatedly and I managed to get enough caustic glue in my eye to cause serious irritation and stinging for the remainder of the day.

I have given up on the whole false eyelash idea and will just compensate by the application of a great deal of blue shimmery eye shadow and many coats of whatever mascara was used by Tammy Faye. But oddly, the most enlightening thing to come out of this is that I have to face the music and realize that I will not realize my dream of being a back-up singer to Liza (to whom false eyelashes and slinky sparkly dresses are required). Some dreams die hard. They die harder when you only have half the eyelashes on your right eye.