No, I haven't suddenly become sick of being a singleton. Rather, I wanted to bring up one thing about singletonism that truly sucks, namely being sick. I recently developed a disturbing and disgusting allergy to my contact lenses. I didn't know this at the time, I thought I just had torn a lens and had a bad pair. Let me set the scene for you: I'm still at the office about 90 minutes after I was supposed to have left and my eyes are killing me. I determine that one lens does seem to have some type of tear and couldn't figure out what the hell was up with the other one. The result is that my eyes are irritated and itchy, I'm becoming increasingly cross-eyed from not being able to look out of both eyes successfully at the same time, and this cross-eyedness has me feeling like I'm going to vom.
So of course this is when my boss decides that we need to have a meeting about how we can overachieve on a task that we haven't been officially assigned yet, despite the fact that my eyes are red and twitchy and I increase the amount of mentions of being about to vom. I finally get enough done to the point where I am set free into the balmy night although on the way at least two people try to stop me for another meeting. GAH!
As soon as I get to my car, I realize that all is not well as I have got to drive myself home. I can only credit a fleet of guardian angels, some seriously undeserved good karma, or nearly blind luck that I made it home with myself and my car all in tact. When I get home, Charlie is at the door waiting for a long walk and some entertaining. I look around for my butler to walk him, take out my eyeballs, and give me a Manhattan, but sadly I have not achieved independent wealth yet. So I pry the lenses from my eyeballs, hurriedly put on my glasses, and head out the door for a highly squinty walk. After the walk, I'm pretty much done for the day except that as Charlie has not learned how to cook me dinner or take out the recycling, there is no rest for the weary.
The next day I had fully planned to take the whole day off but as my work to do list had not become my to done list, that dream was shattered, leaving me with the hope that I could at least take a half day. My eyes are actually worse despite opting for glasses over the hateful lenses and prodigiously using eye drops. I make it an hour or so when a colleague sends me into a near panic by wondering if I have scratched my cornea and developed an infection. Being a bit of a hypochondriac I manage to make an appointment with the one ophthalmologist who works in the state of Maryland on a Friday and get out the door only slightly late for the appointment.
But there's that pesky part of being a singleton again, I have to drive myself to the doctor's where I learn that somehow in the past year I have developed a serious allergy to my lenses and have some awful infection. This is when I would have loved to have someone to drive me around and make everything better, but Charlie can't reach the gas pedal so I motor to 3 pharmacies to find the expensive and elusive eye drops I require and then return home.
There have been worse times when I've been sick and filled with angst at my solitary state. During those times I will whine mightily until my sister arrives to bring me juice, walk Charlie, pick up my meds, or generally be angelic. But although I know that I can call her whenever (and hope that she knows the same goes if she needs me), that good ole fashioned Catholic guilt makes me feel bad for bothering anyone. This is when it would be ideal if in/near my house there were someone with two legs, a driver's license, and the ability to make tea and soup who would come unbidden to deal with me in my sick and sad state.
Now I know that having a husband or boyfriend does not mean that all my woes would be made wonderful. I've seen plenty of friends whose spouses are miraculously unavailable or unwilling when my friends don't feel well. But if I had some sort of manservant or minion, he would have to tend to me and bring me saltines, eyedrops, fixed ankle walkers, or whatever my little heart desired. Just the thought of having a minion has made me feel a little better.
