The Eyelash Incident of 2009

Another repost from facebook. I'll post some new stuff soon, I promise:

So there I was, about to make probably my worst decision in recent history. Let me preface this story with the disclaimer that I was overly stressed out, nervous, running late, and in a big hurry. Thank God there was no permanent eye damage sustained! Please, save your comments about how this was a horrible idea and a foolish action, because quite frankly I get that. I realized it when I nearly lost the vision in my left eye! I am telling this story purely for your amusement, and perhaps as a cautionary tale, if you will. So please enjoy and feel free to make fun of me, but save the lectures. They pretty much go in one ear and out the other anyway.

Friday was disco fever theme night at Divas & Rockstars Karaoke Bar and Oprah's film crew was going to be there so I wanted to rock a fierce disco look but somehow still manage to look cute for the cameras (a very fine line to walk considering how cheesy the entire decade of the '70s was). I was wearing a shimmery purple,gold, and pink shirt and dangly purple disco ball earrings so I thought to complete the look I would throw on some fantabulous pink & black fake eyelashes from a past Halloween costume.

After dumping out the entire contents of the linen closet to find the dang things, I squeezed the eyelash glue out of the tube and it came out in one long nasty goopy string. Apparently using 3-year-old glue that has been sitting open really isn't a viable option. I totally didn't have time for this so thought, "Hmm, I wonder if I could just use SuperGlue?" I knew this was most likely a bad idea and even considered calling my sister to ask her opinion, but figured I just didn't have the time to waste.

Grabbing the SuperGlue from the toolbox in the basement should have been yet another clue that this stuff wouldn't be appropriate to use near my eyes, but I didn't stop there. Even reading the back of the tube where it warned that it was caustic and the fumes would bother eyes only gave me slight pause. I just knew it was a bad idea but was so desperately trying to make it be a good idea that I reasoned that I wouldn't be putting the stuff IN my eyes, so it should be fine. Which was totally not the case, by the way!

I put a little SuperGlue on the edge of the fake eyelashes. Well, that's not true. I tried to put a "little" glue on them but that's not a possible with SuperGlue since it all comes out in a huge blob. Since SuperGlue bonds immediately, of course the eyelashes stuck to my fingers before I could get them to my eyes. Yet another massive bad omen that went unheeded...

After ripping my fingers free of the glue (cut to you asking yourself if I could possibly be more dense, and me assuring you that I could not), I lightly placed the fake eyelashes over my real eyelashes. Here's where it got scary: I blinked and couldn't re-open my eyelid since the damn SuperGlue had stuck my top eyelashes to my bottom eyelashes. Serious moment of sheer panic and pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a second. I forced my eyelid open and held it there until the glue dried all the while staring myself in the mirror and literally yelling at my reflection "You stupid, stupid woman. Oh my God this was a huge mistake. Stupid. STUPID!" As soon as I was able to keep my eye open I yanked the fake eyelashes off and with them came several of my real eyelashes. Relieved at this point, I thought I had dodged a serious bullet. Um, not yet.

That's when I noticed that it hurt every time I blinked because there were large chunks of dried SuperGlue stuck on my lashes.Well, no problem, a little eye makeup remover should loosen that right up...or not. The only other way I could think of to loosen it was to use nail polish remover - which, in case you were wondering, is another substance which irritates the eyes. I tried wetting a cotten ball with the nail polish remover and holding it on my eyelid to soak the lashes but that burned after about 1 second and I had to press a cold wet washcloth to my eye to stop the pain. So next I tried using two q-tips. Both soaked in nail polish remover, I held one on top of my lashes and one underneath and tried to pull my lashes as far away from my eye as possible. This worked to an extent and I was able to sort of scrape the gooey glue mess off my lashes. But not all of it came off so I tried to use the tweezer to separate the clumps and maybe just pull out one or two lashes. Not happening. The last resort was to actually take a scissors and CUT OFF MY EYELASHES! I lost a lot of good lashes that day. A good chunk on the upper outer corner of my right eye and a sizable amount on the inner lower corner. I think my mom was mildly alarmed when I called her and instead of saying "hello," exclaimed, "Mom, do eyelashes grow back?! PLEASE say they do!"

So much for saving time by using SuperGlue. Since I'm apparently a glutton for punishment, I stopped at the store and bought some new lashes that came with special eye-approved glue to adhere them. So that is how I came to be sitting in my car in the Walgreen's parking lot on a cold snowy evening in October applying fake eyelashes as my car shook from the wind gusts. Now, eye-approved or not, if you slip up and accidentally get that glue in your eye, while it may not sting, it will temporarily completely cloud your vision. Cue another brief moment of panic while I contemplated what life would be like being blind in my right eye due to an unfortunate hastily applied eyelash glue incident. But while I worked to slow my breathing, the vision cleared up and I was able to move on to applying lashes to my other eye. And in the end, I had fabulous sparkly eyelashes to show for it! Take a look at the photo. Totally worth it.

You can say a lot about me, but you certainly can't say I didn't learn a valuable lesson that day: SuperGlue is evil.