Yesterday I managed to catch the bristle of my toothbrush on the edge of the toothpaste tube and flung toothpaste directly in my eye. It was the mintiest burn I’ve ever experienced and I immediately began flushing it with water all while having flashbacks to another incredibly traumatic eye experience.
It was prom night, my junior prom.
My only prom.
I was crouched down on the floor in my grandmothers bedroom using her nightstand as my desk while I applied my glue on nails. I recall her laying on the bed, probably talking on the phone, I honestly do not remember for sure, she was there though.
At one point the edge of the super glue tube got stuck on the skin of one of my fingers and as I tugged it off - I shit you not - a small drop of super glue landed directly in my eye.
I’ll let that sit for a second…..
I fucking super glued my eye!
OMFG!
As soon as it hit I IMMEDIATELY knew not to close my fucking eye. I grabbed my eye lids and held it open while screaming and waving my other arm like a maniac.
Thankfully I wore contacts, I had those super hard, uncomfortable Toric lenses and they caught the majority of the glue. A small splatter was on my eye directly and I had to just pull it when the contact came off….what else was I going to do?
My grandmother didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation because she didn’t seem to panic, or really do anything at all for that matter.
Hindsight is 20/20 they say, and while my eyesight was not that good, I totally should have seen right there that prom night was going to suck ass in the worst possible way.
I was dating someone my grandparents absolutely forbade me from seeing. Their reasons were more based on race but they were not wrong that I should not have been dating him. See, he was quite brutal to me…another story - you know the deal…
I didn’t get my hair done, and obviously I didn’t get my nails done. I didn’t get the proud parents/grandparents taking pictures of me in my dress. There were no fancy cars or fancy dinners either. I’m not even sure I got a corsage, or maybe I did but I think I may have paid for it, I’m not entirely sure. It seems vaguely familiar that I got the flowers myself - not surprising.
Anyway, you get the gist. It was not the big to-do that most people in my school got.
I did have a friend who came and took a couple Polaroids for me. Looking at me now I can see so much sadness and complete lack of self confidence. I really need to hug the old me.
And hey - check out that orange and yellow shag carpet - I know you are jealous ;)
I hated that carpet so bad! Just the worst! Now, I’d probably rock it LOL!
Instead, I lied and told my grandparents I was going with a friend and had them drop me off at a random house and then I walked over to where we were going to meet.
My friend, Dave (names have been changed) and his date along with me and my date, Eric, were all going to go to prom together.
I arrived at Dave’s house - only they were gone . His brother said they went to MY HOUSE to pick me up! OMG the fear of them showing up at my house and my grandfather getting his gun…I saw the whole movie play out in a flash.
All I could do was stand in the driveway, in my long white satin dress, with one contact and a really red left eye and cry. I must have looked pretty pathetic.
Eventually they came back and found me. I crammed into the back of Dave’s tiny ass car and off we went. I can’t recall the make and model of the damn car, but whatever was the smallest freaking car made at the time that would be the car, we were sardines in a tin can.
I don’t remember where prom was held, I don’t recall the theme or the decorations. We went in and stayed for about half an hour. I would have liked to have stayed longer but everyone thought it was lame so we left.
Like all kids who go to prom you typically go get dinner somewhere, we chose the culinary delights of the world famous Burger King - nothing but the best, right? We didn’t even get out of the fucking car, we did the drive through. So lame.
We went back to a friends house and it just became the same as any other night.
Eric and I fought, a lot. He cheated on me all the time and beat me frequently. If you have ever read any of my posts you know that I had a fucked up ideal of what ‘love’ was, I thought it was my fault for being a shitty girlfriend. I didn’t do something right, I didn’t dress right or I just wasn’t enough, blah, blah, blah. I did think it was super cool that he carved our initials in the city jail - it’s sad that I actually saw them inside of the jail cell in person (more than once).
That night I gave Eric my class ring. I loved that ring, I was super excited to finally get it and I was going to give it to him as a sign of my commitment to him. What an idiot I was. Like a week later I found out that he just tossed it away to prove to some other chick that he didn’t care about me.
I wish I could blame the super glue for not seeing what an asshole he was, that didn’t come for a while longer.
Young love is dumb
It wasn’t love and I was dumb
Don’t be dumb.
And be careful with super glue - and toothpaste.
