The Day I Almost Went Blind

Always remember to pay attention in high school chemistry class. What you learn could save your leyef. Or the leyeves of your loved ones.

Just like it saved mine this morning.

Toilet cleaner is a base, an alkali.

A hydrogen acceptor of the most nefarious sort.

It is almost certainly a caustic substance know by the State of California to do bad things. Probably really bad things. Just like basically all substances are known to the State of California to be dangerous, usually to cause cancer [keep on keeping the California a safer place, proposition 65!].

And this morning, it almost took something precious away from me.

My eyesight.

While fastidiously scrubbing the porcelain throne with my ergonomically designed, yet discount-priced, bristly scrub brush, basic projectiles, through immense centripetal force created by yours truly, escaped the power of aqueous adhesion.

Tiny blue-hued, ball-like missiles.

They sought refuge in my eyes. A direct hit.

Oh the burn. The fire. My eyelids blinked as fast as they could. Up and down. Attempting to assuage the searing degeneration of my organic tissues.

Two things came to mind in a flash of hydrogen.

The first, the ending couplet of a verse and the following famous chorus from Simon & Garfunkle’s Boxer:

Looking for the places
Only they would know

Lye la lye lye la la la lye lye
Lye la lye, lye la la la la lye la la lye

And second, important lessons long-ago forgotten, but immediately recalled, from the days of advanced high school chemistry and sipping from Erlenmeyer flasks.

The safety drills instilled deep into our core.

My training as a little Arrhenious, no longer crouching. No longer hidden.

I unleashed the dragon.

Instantly I knew what I had to do.

I had to pour acid in my eyes.