This Is Why I'm Currently Taking Up a Collection For Lasik Surgery

Here's a fact: I have terrible vision. How terrible? Well, my driver's license includes a stipulation that I must wear corrective lenses. The first thing I do in the morning is put in my contacts, and the last thing I do at night is take them out, because time spent without my contacts is time spent risking a horrible, hilarious death at the hands of some innocuous household object. Like, I don't know, mistaking a fork for a screwdriver and then... jamming it in my eye? My vision is so bad that when I take one contact out, I set it calmly in the contacts case on the counter, but when I take the second contact out, I have to physically bring the contacts case 3 inches from my face so that I can be sure that I'm actually placing the contact in there properly. I have glasses, but I hardly ever wear them, because although they're very pretty and they make me look smart, they also have fairly thick lenses which I'm convinced cause a little bit of a Mr. Magoo effect.

In addition to having bad vision in general, I have terrible night vision when I'm sans glasses and contacts. I like to think that this is part of the reason that I've always been a little afraid of the dark. The combination of an active imagination and night vision that makes everything seem like a black and gray impressionist painting can make for some harrowing late nights spent wondering if that shadow in the corner is just some clothes or A MURDERER COME TO KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.

Even though I have awful night vision, I usually don't put on my glasses for late night trips to the bathroom. I know my bedroom well enough that it's not necessary. That's why I didn't put my glasses on the other night when I was staying at my parents' house and had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I was careful, though, because it was really dark, and I was half-asleep, and I'm clumsy, and you just never know. So I swung my feet over the side of the bed and got up, slowly. And I slowly worked my way across the room to the doorway. And when I got close to the doorway, I was so surprised by how dark it was out on the landing that I started walking even more tentatively, edging my way into the hallway while I peered, squinty-eyed, trying to make sure that I was headed across the hall and toward the bathroom and not into some inky black abyss of horror and danger. Seriously, it was just so DARK in the hallway, and I seemed to remember there usually being some sort of light on out there, and why couldn't I see anything? These are the confused thoughts I had as I inched my way out toward the hallway, and then, well...

KA-THUNK! is probably the best description of the sound the bedroom door made as I carefully and deliberately walked right the hell into it with my big dumb forehead.

On the bright side, once I opened the door, it was really pretty easy to find my way to the bathroom.