Only me.

I am a complete and total spaz.

The other day I was in a mad rush. I had physical therapy first thing in the morning and was running very late. So late that I slicked my wet hair back into a sloppy ponytail and didn't put on any make-up. So late that I sniffed my laundry bag and quickly found a pair of "clean" sweats to throw on. So late that I, well...

made myself puke.

Yeah.

I was heading out the door. All of a sudden I felt something in my eye. I wear contacts most of the time so one little piece of fuzz basically feels like an elephant stomping its foot in my eye. It's so painful that it stops me dead in my tracks. I love my glasses but I am vain and suffer through contacts because when I wear my glasses I find myself acting sheepish and shy and not-so-confident. I am not some sexy, Lisa Loeb-esque vixen eager to dominate men with my specs. No, I feel I am quite the opposite. So I suffer through contacts.

Anyway...

since I was running so late, instead of going all the way into the bathroom and fumbling with contact cleaner in my sink (a mere 3 second walk, mind you) I thought it would be much, MUCH faster to just flick my contact out, wet it with my tongue and then put it back into my eye. I have done this when I am in my car with much success.

So I did it. I flicked my contact out, put it in my mouth, got distracted and then...
accidentally swallowed.

I took a breath. I felt my contact at the back of my throat.

My heart stopped. I went to spit my contact out into my hand and nothing was in my mouth. I started looking at the roof of my mouth and my gums in the mirror, hoping it was just hiding somewhere.

No luck. I still felt my contact at the back of my throat.

At this point, I really start to bug as I remember I have no back up pair. My mind starts racing. How am I going to go to that fun party tonight? The outfit I planned would not look good with my glasses. I will look like a dork. I will be the sheepish girl in the glasses. Then I thought of how I don't have an eye doctor here just yet--how would I even get a new pair at all?

I still feel the contact at the back of my throat.

Suddenly I have an idea. All through college and even into my early and not so early twenties, no matter how drunk I got, I never pulled the trigger. I figured, if my body needed to get rid of something, it would make me puke on my own.

But this was a time when my body needed to get rid of something and it didn't even realize it yet. With lightning quickness, I stick my finger down my throat and make myself puke, hoping that the contact will come up with it.

Nothing.

Again.

Spit but nothing else.

And again.

Nothing at all.

Altogether, I made myself puke at least SIX times. No contact in sight. At this point, I just start crying. And then I just get mad. So mad that I pick up my sweatshirt and throw it across the floor.

"Tick, tick, tick."

I hear something fall.

My little, plastic, faintly blue contact is on the floor. It had fallen onto my sweatshirt intially when I had spit it out of my mouth. Yet all the while I had "felt" it in the back of my throat.

I clean it off at my sink and place it back into my eye and then jump for joy.
Well, at least I know I have the ability to make myself puke if I need to.