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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

That girl is poisoned

The Death Angel is after me again, and this time he’s using my eyesight against me. Sometimes I wonder if bats might have better eyesight than me. I’ve been known to walk into a mic or door a time or two. But usually my bad eyesight has never seriously impacted my health – until I woke up this morning.
Typically I conduct my morning rituals sans glasses, unless I slept in contacts. Who needs glasses to shower, brush their teeth or say their prayers? I’ve even shaved a few times without glasses. Unfortunately one time I cut a gash in my leg. Now I wear glasses or contacts whenever completing that task. But surely brushing my teeth is not serious enough to warrant the use of glasses. Or so I though.
This morning started off as any other. Shower. Check. Fix hair. Check. Gargle with mouthwash. Check. And that’s when tragedy struck. After about 30 seconds I was wondering why the mouthwash tasted weird and stung more than normal. Initially I chalked it up to the fact that I bought a new mouthwash yesterday. Then I realized it wasn’t mouthwash I had just gargled with. It was my face astringent. Oh the horror! I just knew I was about to die and immediately called poison control.
The nine minutes it took for someone to answer my call gave me time to ponder a couple of things. I wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else, or was I just a special case. Anyone could accidentally grab the astringent (I won't mention that time I almost used nail polish remover). Right? And I thought about what would happen if I died before they got to my call. At least my roommate would find me fully clothed.  I also had time to memorize the poison control spiel. If you don’t ingest a potentially poisonous liquid, just rinse your mouth out with water. I was already ahead of the game since I grabbed mouthwash (for real this time) to get rid of the taste.
The nurse who answered the call assured me I wasn’t going to die but merely would have a bad taste in my mouth for a while. He suggested brushing my teeth again and rinsing with (real) mouthwash. As I write this, I still have the lingering taste of astringent. Tomorrow morning I will probably still go about my daily ritual without glasses on. But this time I’ll be prepared. I’m placing my mouthwash and astringent it two totally separate places. Don’t think it can’t happen to you too folks! If I were you I’d take precaution.

Who else has had to call poison control? What did you gargle with?

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