Red-Eyed, Weary, and Intoxicated: The Trifecta

Hello, my name is Rachel.  I am a perpetual klutz.

In my family, graceful is not a word often used to describe the women.  Blessed with bowed-knees (Paula) or feet that pronate too much (me), we usually find hips, thighs, knees, and calves riddled with bruises.  Currently, my bruise count is up to three.  One of my thigh, two on each calve.  The one of my thigh is the story I present today.

During the winter, I dread wearing my contact lenses.  Those lenses that promised to feel like an “oasis” of moisture in resting over my irises.  Well, Acuvue, you LIED.  My eyes feel perpetually dry and itchy, and rather than remedy the situation, I let the itch fester until my eyes look bloodshot and my persona evolves from its usual crabby state to seething beast from hell.  So, the itch eventually turned into searing pain by Monday afternoon and I finally gave in and requested Dave please bring me my glasses to wear to dinner, so I would not rip his innards out and spit them onto his plate at dinner, making it a rather unpleasant experience.  Wishing to avoid the same experience as imagined through the tone of my voice, Dave kindly obliged.

When I transition to my glasses from hours of wearing my contacts, I lose a significant amount of my long-distance vision.  Suddenly, objects once visible fifteen feet down the road become large, globular things I fail to recognize.  I still see other cars, signs, and police cars.  Very important last feature not to miss, those police cars.   However, while I may recognize them, they remind me of what life looks like in a drunken state when you lose focus on reality and suddenly everything is both funny and fuzzy at the same time. 

Mix this “drunken state” induced from poor vision with an actual drunken state and I might as well have tucked myself into bed that evening and called it a night before the evening began because nothing good comes with my perception of loss of control mixed with tequila.  That regrets tastes nothing like a salt-brimmed margarita.  Never does.

This is where the story gets good.  At home, standing in the bathroom, I opened a cabinet door to return some items strewn across the counter to the cabinet below.  In my unending state of partial blindness and intoxication, while I could not think or see clearly, I decided the best thing to do at the moment would be to run into the living room and tell Dave something.  I remember not what I intended to tell him, but I remember feeling a sense of urgency.  As I turned to run out of the bathroom, I tripped on the small, open door.  Instead of falling over the door as most people would, I crashed through it. 

The architect and home builder decided that the best place for the cabinet door to open would be against the frame of the door to the bathroom.  So, as my weight shifted from my feet and more towards my head, the door I crashed through propped against the frame and snapped in half.  The wood fell to the ground in a clatter and I stood staring down at it in disbelief.  This was not my house.  I pay no rent to live here and I just broke a three-year old cabinet door in half.  What a way to ring out 2007: destroying your boyfriend’s parent’s home.  Lovely.

In the end, the door was glued into something that resembled its original state.  Though my own pride lay in shards, I swallowed the slivers and made amends to change my faults in 2008.  My first resolution of the new year is to close doors instead of rip them from their hinges.  The second resolution is to purchase a new pair of glasses.