Hey everyone.

I had an interesting event happen to me tonight at work that caused one of those memory flashbacks like you see in the movies.  You know, everything kind of goes fuzzy and the characters are suddenly transported back in time to relive their past events so everyone gets to see what could have caused them to be so messed up in the present.  Well, it was kind of like that except without the fuzzy stuff happening, but hey, how in the heck else am I going to set the mood for this story.  Anyway, I am at work and during one of my many thousands of items that I must take care of each night... I get some dust in my eye.  Not a stick or a kitty hair ball (note prior entries for those references), but just a piece of dust.  Now, why is this so interesting?  Because of the flashback that I had...silly goose...that's why.

Well, a few years ago I was preparing to make a road trip to pick up my lovely daughters for my Christmas visitation and since I live approximately elevendy billion miles away from them (really only about 525 miles) I must make a rather lengthy drive to accomplish this.  It is well worth it to spend time with them, so a little drive is nothing.  To continue, because of scheduling issues that year I would have to travel on Christmas day in order to allot enough travel time due to weather and potential road conditions.  Just being cautious, you know?  So, my bags are packed and ready to go.  My coffee is fresh and steamy.  The car is gassed up and ready to roll.  Now, all I have to do is eat a little breakfast and toss everything in the car and hit the road.

Ah, if it were only that simple....only if.

I finished up my yummy breakfast that consisted of left overs from the previous nights dinner and prepared for departure.  The only thing left to do...brush and floss my teeth.  Nothing too difficult with that now is there?  It seems that the brushing went according to plan, but the flossing had a minor setback.  Seems that during the act of flossing some sort of foreign object flew out from my mouth and ricochets off of the mirror and back into my right eye.  Oooo...yuck!  I ceased in my efforts to floss and rinsed my eye in the bathroom sink.  This seems to have removed what ever it was and I continued on with my travel plans.  So, it's off to the long drive that lay ahead.  It was not very long into my travels that I noticed that my right eye was begining to feel a slight bit of discomfort.  Nothing too terrible at that time, but enough to notice that things just were not right. 

Now as a note to all of the readers, I am like many people in that I have one eye that is stronger than the other...can you guess which eye that I am going to have trouble with?  Also, for everyone who has never traveled on Christmas day...there just are not a lot of places on the road that are open for busness that day.

After about three hours on the road my right eye began to be very irritated from the apparent object that is still lodged in my eyelid.  All I need to do is pull over to the next gas station and I again will attempt to rinse my eye out.  Only if there were any places open...only if.  Since I had stopped earlier in the trip to fill up the car and take care of all biological needs, it seems that I would be lucky enough to find another gas station open soon.  Still, it would be about another hour before I would find an establishment that would seem "convenient" enough to stop at.  Being on the road and all, you don't want to make too many stops.  By this time, what ever was in there had caused my eye to swell up and turn into a blazing shade of pink and red.  I could not dig it out, rub it out or cry it out.  It was dug in there like an Alabama tick!  Finally, I would reach an oasis on my frozen highway and once again I would stop and rinse my eye out in hopes of removing what ever was lodged in there.  If you have ever tried to stick your entire head into a sink at a truck stop...then you will know just what I am trying to share with you now.  I was determined that I would not leave that restroom until I was successful in removing this evil seed from my eye.  I know that anyone else walking into that restroom must have had a strange thought or two, but I didn't really care.  Now that my eye is completely swollen and oozing matter from one corner, this would be a fight to the finish!  I now have as most of my face jammed in under the faucet with the water splashing all about...patrons looking on with curiosity, but not really knowing if there is any need to ask if I needed assistance.  Rinse, rinse, rinse...the battle rages on...rinse, rinse, rinse.  I don't really know just how long I stood there with my head plunged in the sink, but it finally seems that it has paid off.  As I look into the mirror at my now gigantic pink eye I notice a lump of white fleshy matter stuck to the side of my cheek.  Could this be it?  What in the world is this?  Did I forget to turn the stove off?

It seems that this little piece of matter that I have plucked off of my cheek is the culprit to all of my troubles.  What is it?  Well, since this all began with my need to floss my teeth after breakfast and bouncing it off of my mirror like a basketball thrown off of a brick wall...it only seemed logical that this was it.  A nice little piece of chicken from my leftovers-for-breakfast was the cause to my problems.  Ok, that's not so bad.

About four hours later when I arrived at my motel...the night clerk was curious to know if I had pink eye.

NO!  It's chickie eye! 

Everyone have a great day!