If You Can Get It From My Kung Fu Grip, Then You Can Have It. Okay? Otherwise, Step Off……

In case you’ve been living in a cave for the last 18 months, here’s some news: the economy’s in the crapper. It’s been getting worse every day since some time in 2007, although there is some optimism surrounding a potential upswing. I am definitely one of the many Americans who have cut back on things. Things I needed to cut back on anyway. I’m not super spendy, but the economic situation has been a mini wake-up-call. I’m eating out less, buying off brands at the grocery store, cutting coupons (I saved $19 in one trip to the store! Go me!), avoiding getting my hair cut as often as I used to (so every three years instead of every two….), and so on and so forth.

But when it comes down to it, no matter how bad it gets…..(and I mean bad, they can cut my hours at work, cut my pay, cut my job and leave me waiting tables somewhere) there are some things I will NEVER give up. I can’t do it. We all have our indulgences (for MommaMonday it’s getting her hair colored every 6 weeks, shhhhh, don’t tell her I told you), but for me it’s much more random than that. I can give up, very easily, most things that others would consider essentials. I’ve already given up a lot of my car by taking the bus to work every day (and not easy to do when you’re in a sprawling Southern city). I’d give up my cell phone if I had to. I’d certainly give up dining out completely. And mani/pedis, coffee at the Bucks, and expensive clothes and make-up were never my indulgences anyway. So I guess I’m lucky in that department. The one thing I wouldn’t give up, no matter what, is my contacts. Silly as it might sound, they’re my one indulgence.

I’ve worn contacts since I was in 9th grade. I think I probably counted down the days until my first pair starting sometime in the 7th grade. I can remember sitting on my hands the first night trying not to rub at my itchy eyes because I’d already rubbed the contacts out once. I had a pair of the old soft contacts that you had to take out every night, rub with cleaning solution, let them sit, then come back and put them in saline overnight. It was such a chore but much, much better than glasses. There’s nothing worse than being a soccer player in glasses. Besides having the tendency to break countless pairs of glasses, I hated playing in them in the rain – I almost felt like they needed little mini windshield wipers. I could never see out of them. And they fogged up anytime I got something out of the oven. Needless to say, I was thrilled with my first pair of contacts. But being a child of divorce, I was always forgetting my cleaning solution at the other parent’s house, or running out, or tearing a lens. So over the years, the contacts turned out to be just as much pain and frustration as the glasses. Although very painful at the time, an eye infection in 2000 turned out to give me just the relief I need. My eye doctor forced me to switch over to the daily disposables and I haven’t gone back since. They’re extravagantly expensive (you put in a fresh pair every day and throw them out each night), but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I tear one, FLING off it goes into the trash. I lose one crying in the movie theatre, no worries, I just snag an extra from my purse and pop it in. No cleaning each night, no worries about tearing one (and the extra) while I’m in Europe, or Antarctica. Anyway, enough about the eyeballs, I can just say no matter the cost (and the cost, whew, is freakishly high), I would never, ever, ever trade them in for the old contacts or glasses again.