In Which I Put Hydrogen Peroxide In My Eyes

I woke up. I went into the bathroom and proceeded to stab myself in the eye.

At least, that's what it felt like.

In reality, I placed my right contact lens over my eye and paaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiin.

Immediately my eye watered over and shut to protect itself. Which was smart in theory, but less smart in reality, because in order to remove the offending contact I had to pry my eyelid open with both hands. And the whole time I was in severe pain. And I wished I'd just stayed in bed.

Finally I removed the contact.

"What," I asked myself, "is wrong with this contact? Why is it hurting my eye?"

See, sometimes contact lenses have little rips in them, or bits of dirt, and when you put them in they irritate your eyes. However, that kind of irritation tends to be more subtle and less blinding than this excruciatingness.

"Hmmm," I said, feeling like Nancy Drew. I examined the contact with a sleuth's (left) eye. "Hmmmmmmm." But without contact lenses, I am almost completely blind, and if there was a rip or some dirt in that right contact I certainly couldn't see it.

"Well," I decided, "I'll put in my left contact so that I can see, and then I'll conduct my investigation." I placed the other contact on my left eye.

PAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIN.

Now both my eyes were injured and I didn't know why.

Roughly seventy-two percent of the threats Nancy Drew faces are acid-related. Like, there are so many books where Nancy accidentally touches or is given something coated with acid. Then her skin smarts and stings and she knows she has to get treatment right away or else bye-bye epidermis. And since she's tied up or locked away roughly half the time this happens, getting treatment is not so easy.

But she's Nancy freakin' Drew. Either she finds a way to escape or deus ex machina helps her out. And once she's no longer trapped, she's all, "Ned!" (because sometimes her sort of-boyfriend Ned Nickerson is with her)"We have to put oil on our hands! Oil counteracts acid!" And then there's some oil conveniently lying around. And they plunge their hands in it and literally save their skin. And Ned is like, "Oh Nancy. This is exactly why I love you."

1) This really does happen frequently in Nancy Drew. Sometimes Nancy or her friends are attacked by spiders or by homemade robots, but mostly it's acid.

2) I know that Nancy is only eighteen, but she should just marry Ned already instead of bouncing between him and other random college guys. You'll never find anyone else who will support you like that, Nancy. Most guys don't find a tendency to end up in acid-related danger attractive.

Just as I was deciding that someone must have put acid in my contact case and that I should go rinse my eyes with oil, I remembered that the night before I had gone to bed very late.

I could not find my bottle of contact lens solution.

So I had used my sister's.

Groping about on the counter, I found Older Sister's contact lens solution. Through pain-stung eyes, I squinted at the ingredients on the bottle.

3% hydrogen peroxide

The rest of the morning was spent in the bathroom, rinsing my eyes a thousand times and listening to Older Sister give a charming discourse about how I was the only person she knew who had the skillz (or lack thereof) to put hydrogen peroxide in not one, but both, of my own eyes.

OLDER SISTER: It has tons of warning labels on it! Why didn't you read them?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Because the labels are warnings against incorrect use. And this bottle is clearly labeled 'contact lens solution.'

OLDER SISTER: So?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Under what circumstances would anyone see something clearly labeled 'contact lens solution' and ever think that an incorrect use would be to put it on their contact lenses?

OLDER SISTER: ...I see what you mean.