My polka dot Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are astonished to see my distressed eyelid deepening in color to this extent. I guess I could say I’ve inadvertently discovered a free eye shadow hack, and I could easily do this to my other eyelid—for purposes of symmetry. But my good sense tells me it is a wiser move to stop at a single pretty, purpled eyelid. I shall not purposely attempt to injure my left eyelid the way I accidentally fwhomped my right one.
Here’s the absurdly simple thing I did to myself which gave me a black eye: Early Saturday morning, before it was light outside, I was packing my truck for our drive to Oakley’s funeral. My arms were full of things we needed to take with us to Delta. You know how, when you get a new vehicle, you have to get used to where various controls are located? Well, I guess I needed to get used to how tall and wide the truck’s doors are in the dark. I juggled what I was carrying to load up. I set a few items on the ground to get a free hand, so I could open the truck door. I grabbed the door handle. I lifted the handle and pulled the door open with the extra oomph of joy I felt at finally having my new truck living with me. Apparently, I and my oomph are stronger than I imagined, and the doors to my truck are of significantly larger dimensions than those on my old jalopy truck. As I pulled the door open, I slammed the door’s edge right into my right eye. (Be fair in your judgment of me—it was still dark outside.) My eye socket, fortunately, was stronger than the door, and it protected my eyeball. Above my right eyebrow, you can see a barely-there scratch or two where the door made its impact. The door hit particularly hard—I’m sure because of the Mr. Atlas strength in my writing arm. I did not, however, anticipate that my eyelid would put on a show of color for all to see. Although I could feel the bump I got on my eyebrow all during that day, I didn’t notice the bruise showing at all while we were in Delta. On the way home, we stopped for a potty break in Nephi, and both Suzanne and Rowan told me they could see the beginnings of a bruise. Today, its color has deepened to a pleasant shade of home-bottled grape juice.
It is a crumby thing—especially for a writer—when a groovy-looking visible wound comes with a such a pathetic back story to be told about its true origin. I could have lied about it and made up a much more interesting-but-false tall-tale about how anxiously engaged in a good cause I was when I acquired my eye’s Red Badge o’ Courage. Some days, though, the simple klutzy truth is what comes out of my noggin. 🙄
