Do Not Try This At Home Kids....

I once went temporarily blind... and NO... not as a result of what you are immediately thinking!
And by the way... that is just one of those urban myths anyway.... [isn’t it?]
Anyhoo, it all happened on a beach, with the Pacific Ocean in front of me and a park full of people behind me.
I was all alone, reading a biography of Raoul Wallenberg and working on my tan.
[Note: Back then I could lie around with my shirt off and not be mistaken for a beached whale... today however, were I to do the same.... yes, Greenpeace would definitely be notified!]
At one point in this arduous day on the beach I decided that it was time for a new layer of sunscreen, so I put the book down and smeared this stuff all over me, even on my face, forehead, all over, basically.
Then I leaned back against this huge log, sort of like a pillow in the sand, and with my face directly pointed at the volcanic ragings of a July sun in all its wondrous fury.... I fell asleep.
[Do you at all see where I am going with this?]
I’m not sure how much time had elapsed [it may have been a few days] but when I finally woke up and opened my eyes.... I was blind.
And not only was I blind, but the pain was like nothing I have ever experienced before or since. Excruciating. Sort of radiating inwards from the back of my eyeballs. My brain was on fire. I literally panicked.
Mostly because I love to read so much, I have always had a profound fear of going blind. I fear even my eyesight diminishing in any noticeable way. [I have never had to wear glasses, and have very good vision.... except during the time period of this story I am telling...]
So I panicked because I was blind and in pain. However, when I closed my eyes, the pain vanished. What had happened during the time I had fallen asleep was that all of that molten suntan lotion had seeped its way into my eyeballs, right to the back of them.... surely into the folds of my cerebral cortex. No joke. It was terrible. My brain was being eaten.
And I was alone and a long way from my car, and a long way from the public washroom that I knew was in that park behind me. Somehow I had to get there, stumbling around with my eyes shut. I got up from the sand, tripped over the log, and tried to grope my way like Frankenstein, with one thought in mind really...... “Need water in eyes!”
I finally found the washroom, felt the outer concrete walls of it. I wanted to avoid walking into the women’s washroom. That is all I need now.... to be not only blind and in pain, but to have shrieking broads whipping me with their towels while my hands are extended towards them in misunderstood anguish!
So, leaning on the building I squinted my eyes open a crack, discerned some sort of human shape in front of me and tried to explain to it the situation in as non-threatening and yet sincere a way as possible. This human then led me to the men’s side of the building and I went in there, feeling my way along the walls.
When I found the sinks, I shoved my head right in one and turned the water on. Even then I could not open my eyes. Tilted sideways with the water rushing over my face, eventually it began to wash out the poison. Soon I could half-open my eyes and I continued flushing them out until the pain also subsided.
Then I looked in the mirror.
Sweet Lord!
What once was the white part of my eyes was now what Crayola would call “Busted Scarlet.”
It was a shaky, squinty walk back to the log to retrieve my book and fling what remained of the suntan lotion into the sea. But I say all of this just to warn all of you suntan lotion users out there! To offer my own disclaimer, just as Joe Rogan says at the beginning of every episode of Fear Factor.... “These stunts were designed by professionals, and should not be attempted by anyone, anywhere, anytime!”