02-19-2006, 08:51 PM
Sorry, but I gotta disconcur about the uselessness of safety glasses.
It happened in '79 (yeah, it dates me). I'm in Paoli, Pennsylvania, working for Burroughs Corporation as a data clerk. And damned fool that I am, I'm not wearing safety glasses. Go figure. Back then, we had keyboards and monitors, but this was before desktop computers, so we're accessing a mainframe in the icebox downstairs. Not that this is relevant. Anyway, I'm sitting at my desk, busily clerking data (typing away), minding my own business, and that's when it happens.
I blink.
Suddenly my right eye is on fire. I can't open it all the way. It feels like something is stuck in the iris. I reach up and -- son of a gun -- one of my eyelashes is curled inward. I don't know. Maybe I rubbed my eye just before this happened. Anyway, the tip of the eyelash is buried in my iris. I pull it out. And yes, there is noticable resistance as I'm tugging it free.
After that, I can't stop blinking. Every time I do, there's fire. I go into the restroom and look in the mirror. Sure enough, there's a very visible small crater in my iris. Now, I don't think there's nerve endings in the iris, right? But the rough edges of that crater scrape my eyelid every time I blink. And I can't stop blinking, and my eye is watering like mad.
I end up going home soon after that. It takes a couple days before the eye settles down enough to use it again.
Live and learn. I went out shortly after that and bought me a good pair of safety glasses.
These days, every time I feel a blink coming on, you better believe I'm wearing them.
--cranefly
It happened in '79 (yeah, it dates me). I'm in Paoli, Pennsylvania, working for Burroughs Corporation as a data clerk. And damned fool that I am, I'm not wearing safety glasses. Go figure. Back then, we had keyboards and monitors, but this was before desktop computers, so we're accessing a mainframe in the icebox downstairs. Not that this is relevant. Anyway, I'm sitting at my desk, busily clerking data (typing away), minding my own business, and that's when it happens.
I blink.
Suddenly my right eye is on fire. I can't open it all the way. It feels like something is stuck in the iris. I reach up and -- son of a gun -- one of my eyelashes is curled inward. I don't know. Maybe I rubbed my eye just before this happened. Anyway, the tip of the eyelash is buried in my iris. I pull it out. And yes, there is noticable resistance as I'm tugging it free.
After that, I can't stop blinking. Every time I do, there's fire. I go into the restroom and look in the mirror. Sure enough, there's a very visible small crater in my iris. Now, I don't think there's nerve endings in the iris, right? But the rough edges of that crater scrape my eyelid every time I blink. And I can't stop blinking, and my eye is watering like mad.
I end up going home soon after that. It takes a couple days before the eye settles down enough to use it again.
Live and learn. I went out shortly after that and bought me a good pair of safety glasses.
These days, every time I feel a blink coming on, you better believe I'm wearing them.
--cranefly