The following day I woke up early before school to give myself extra time for securing the contacts on my eyes. I laid out the cleaning fluid, the rinse, and the contact case. Reviewing what the eye specialist had said, I dipped my finger in the R side of the contact case and felt around for the right contact. I got it on my finger. Wait…was it on my finger? Was that just water? I couldn’t tell. I was trying to find something that was 80% liquid in a small container—of liquid! It all looked the same. Finally, I was able to not only differentiate the lens from the water, but also to successfully put it on my eyeball with minimal pain. Onto the left eye. Initially, the left contact went in easier; I blinked my eyes a few times and voila! But…was it really in there? Why was my vision still off? I stared HARD in the mirror, looking for evidence—rims perhaps, something indicating that it was in. I saw the one on the right, but not the one on the left. The closer I got to the mirror and the wider I opened my left eye, I could make out the edge of the contact, which had slid up almost completely behind my eyeball. My fifteen-year-old mind raced with panic. Could it go all the way back? I had actually lost my contact lens in my eye! Gingerly, very gingerly because now I was starting to sweat, I was able to put it down over the pupil, and the world was sharp again. That day at school, I sat proudly in chemistry as I listened to Sister jean prepare us for the next lab. I blinked, and something happened. That damned left contact just fell out of my eye onto the black table! Funny how back at my house the contact had been impossible to see or find, and now, it was practically on display as it glistened like a big black bubble on the table. The girl who sat to my left—the closest to the scene of the accident—yelled, “Ewwww! Lois just spit on the gable, gross!” I thought to myself, “Maybe glasses aren’t so bad…” Little did I know that earlier when I was grappling with the left contact, it had abrased my cornea, and for one week I wore a huge white patch over my left eye, AND glasses on top of that. Vanity had lost that battle.