See, there was this thing on my eyelid. Been there for a while. A sty, an infected hair follicle or somesuch. Warm compresses, drops, trips to the doctor, steroid injections . . . wouldn’t go away. Three, maybe four months. Very annoying. A blight on the face of youth, as it were, what?

So.

This is that they did to my eye yesterday, at the doctor’s office…

First some numbing drops (numbing drops = boiling vinegar) followed by an injection, local anesthetic. “There’ll be a small sting and then a burning…” which is exactly what it felt like, a very small wasp stinging my eye and then injecting acidic venom into the lid. Thanks for the warning, doc.

Then he deftly flipped the eyelid over (my eyelid, actually) with a little three-fingered stainless steel implement designed by Williams-Sonoma to extract oysters or top secret information.

Then they clamped it down, folded, inside out, and tightened two wingnuts at each corner of my eye.

Next, the incision. I mentioned mildly that I could still feel what they were doing.

“Can you feel it, or does it hurt?” The doctor asked.

“I feel it and it hurts,” I replied.

I’m going into my special place now, the spirit cave where my animal guide will lead me away from the pain of the second injection — done this time on the inside of the lid (my lid, for crissakes).

A momentary pause to let the additional local anesthetic — re: placebo — kick in, before the scraping begins.

My spirit animal is a cartoon owl which blinks stupidly at me and says “Dude, what’s wrong with your eye?”

Scraping now and I’m in Lamaze mode at this point. Every so often the doctor murmurs “You’re doing good…” (the word “pussy boy” lies just behind the slight pause at the end of his assurance).

Then blotting, lots of blotting, and (I believe) a garden hose to rinse.

My spirit animal is now dead, flopping erratically on the rough stones in my special place, the fondue fork protruding from its left eye. Took the coward’s way out. Fucking owls. No loyalty.

And then the cauterization begins and I am immediately certain that the anesthetic or novocaine or Mydol that he injected me with has yet to take effect.

Ten-fifteen-forty seconds of burning the inside of my eyelid with a doll sized curling iron. I shall think of it often, even in my dreams.

Sheathed in sweat, eye sockets leaking tears and puss and blood, urine dripping on the tile floor . . . they spin the wingnuts, unclamp the eyelid, let it flap into place like a cartoon windowshade, and tape about three square feet of gauze to the left side of my face.

Not nearly as much fun as it sounds, believe me. The cauterizing was a particular high point.

All last night I could feel the raw spot on the inside of my eyelid rubbing against my eyeball.

Back and forth, back and forth, all night long.