Categories: uncategorized
Date: 14 January 2008 10:20:23
Tonight Pooka is on the balcony due to there being several large crates of grapes on the floor (toxic to dogs) and the mother being a bit short-tempered (loosely related to the grapes. Although she has nothing against grapes per se). She makes the most wonderful noises when she is outside and wants to be inside. No barking. Just an amazing array of groans and moans and whines and squeaks. It's hilarious.
The parable of the lost lens and lost car
I was in a large regional centre, half an hour from the caravan park. I had been sent on a mission to buy 600 sausages, 24 loaves of bread, and assorted other items. The first part of the adventure was to check out sausage prices. I had looked in Aldi, the butcher and Coles, and ascertained that Aldi was the cheapest. I then went back to Aldi to buy some sausages. And disaster struck. My eye was itchy. So I rubbed it. Then I couldn't see. I felt around and couldn't find the contact. This was bad. Then I found it! But alas! It was too dry to put back in. Luckily I hadn't put anything in my trolley yet and was able to flee to the pharmacy nearby and get a saline ampoule. I went to a seat and set about fixing the situation.
I rehydrated the lens, then put it back in my eye. It seemed like everything was fixed. But then I tried to read a sign and couldn't. Who knows why? Multiple choice:
a) My vision had deteriorated suddenly in the last 5 minutes
b) The lens had become distorted while dehydrated and was now non-functional.
c) I had put it back in the wrong eye.
Yes kids, c) is correct. I don't know how that happened. I was a bit tired that day.
So I took them both out of whichever eye they were in and set about putting them back in and hoping I chose the correct eye for each the first time.
Then I dropped one.
No idea where it went.
So I chucked the other one in the bin.
Then set about finding an optometrist who was open in early January in a large regional centre and could see me straight away. The straight away bit was important as there's no mobile reception at the caravan park and people might be concerned if it took me 5 hours to buy sausages. Even 600 of them.
The information person at the Coles/Aldi shopping centre told me that there was no optometrist there but the arcade "over there" had one. After asking for clarification once (I couldn't see what she was pointing at, due to me having no contacts), I pottered off towards where I thought the arcade might be. Three laps of two arcades later, I stumbled upon the optometrist. It was open. Hurrah!
I burst in the door
"I have an optometretrical emergency! I have to buy 600 sausages and my contact lens fell out then I put it in but in the wrong eye then I got the two confused then I dropped one and then I dropped the other one and I am half an hour from my camp site and by myself and can't drive without being able to see!!"
The optometrist agreed that this was indeed an optometrical emergency and ushered me through straight away. She fitted me with some new lenses, made sure I could see, and didn't charge me for the consultation.
I returned to the previously abandoned activity of sausage buying. Managed to exhaust the stocks of Aldi bulk sausages, then bought the remainder at Coles. Incidentally the Coles sausages were gluten free. And really quite good. The Aldi sausages weren't. But as they were $2.50/kg cheaper and they were for a free BBQ, it was prudent to buy as many of them as we could.
I returned to the carpark. And had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA where I'd left my car. It was about the second of January and there were lots of sales on and the carpark was a bit of a warzone. So I was being stalked by multiple cars, in an extraordinarily long carpark with lots of speed bumps, with a very heavy trolley and no memory of where my car was. Eventually I ditched the trolley next to a pole and ran to find my car then returned to get the trolley. Who would want to steal all those sausages.
The other problem was that I wasn't actually finished shopping. So I unloaded all the stuff into my car but had to stop all the time to tell the stalkers that I wasn't finished and wouldn't be leaving them my car space.
The second load was less eventful. But once I got it into the car I was so exhausted and frazzled that I asked a lady passing by with an empty trolley if I could stick my trolley on hers to get my $2 deposit back. I was very thankful that she had pity on me.
The End.