Contact Lenses or Instruments of Doom?

I signed up to drive for my daughter's field trip to the aquarium. Or so they tell me. I can't really believe I signed up to drive on her birthday, but they seem to be counting on me, so I'm going.

But, I have a teensy tiny problem in that the arm popped off of my glasses. This is the second time. I've been driving with glasses that only have one arm for far too long. I could go get a new pair, but my prescription has run out. So I have to go sit in that chair and look through all the lenses and say "One, two, four, six" while they figure out how bad my eyesight really is. And it's bad. At least I could still read the big E.

And frankly, I haven't wanted to take my kids with me for that exam, and I keep having more emergent babysitting needs, so no prescription.

But I can't go to the aquarium blind. Nor can I whisk the glasses of when I get out of the car to save embarrassment, because I have to keep track of for kids and the Mystery Man.

Yes, that's right. He's coming. I got babysitting for Boop, but MM doesn't stay with anybody that's not mama, or keeping him in constant supply of hot cocoa. And he absolutely can scream for 2 hours at a time. You should see me try to walk past the church nursery. He takes a wide berth, my friends.

And did I mention I'm supposed to bring treats because it's Red's birthday.

So, it's the day before the field trip, and I'm panicking about being blind, but sure something will come to me. And it does! Contacts! If you go for a contact exam, you leave with a sample pair. Huzzah! I get a 3:30 appointment. I'll just take the kids.

But that's crazy. So DH offers to watch them, then finish his work after dinner. Ok, great. I go. I look through the lenses. So far so good. I say breezily that I used to wear contacts, and stopped, but would like to get some again.

Oh good, they say, you're an old pro. We can skip the $80 fitting and "class".

Of course you can!

Um, but then it took me half an hour to put in the first one. I had neglected to mention that I'd last worn contacts 12 years ago (was college really that long ago?)And eventually gave up because I could never get them in. Now you see how great is my determination to be Super Field Trip Mom.

An hour and a half and one bored 18 year old watching me the whole time later - I have contacts in my eyes.

And they're not coming out till after the field trip, folks.

Oh, and there's a birthday party.

I'm scheduling my psychic break for about 10 pm - which is probably when I'll be trying to ply these little discs of evil out of my eyes.