The next major injury that I had to deal with wasn't exactly an injury (bear with me, I will explain). The reason I call it an injury is because it kept me in the hospital for a week when I was five or six (I can never really remember - that's the problem with memories that you've mostly blocked out, they get a little short on the details). You see I was born with strabismus. For those of you that have never had it (because the only ones who know what it means are doctors and people who have) strabismus is more commonly called wandering eye. That's right - for the early formative years of my life my right eye used to just sit in the outside corner and not do much of anything. It's very hard to get along with people when they never know which eye to look in so my parents decided it would be best if I had some surgery to straighten out my view of the world. Now if you learned anything from my story of incarceration, you realize that just about the worst thing that could have happened to me at that age was to be kept away from my parents for a week when I couldn't even spend the night at a friend's house (I would contrive reasons to be sent home before bedtime - usually a fight, which wasn't too hard since I am a very contrary person and always able to piss someone off). As it happened, I spent the week staring out the window of my room (with my one eye, the other being bandaged up) looking vainly through the parking lot for my folks' puke green station wagon, talking to no one until my mom and dad showed up after work and stayed until visiting hours were over. Now I know this doesn't sound too funny just yet (unless, of course, you enjoy laughing at the despair of a small child - in which case, we're gonna get along just fine). The funny comes a little later when we find out that my oh-so-skilled doctors apparently over-shortened the eye muscle and instead of straightening out my eye they gave me an amazingly good view of the right side of my nose. The downside to this was that I had to wear an eye patch for about two or three weeks after the operation to loosen the muscle. The upside of that being that it was almost hallowe'en when I had the operation, so I had my costume already prepared.
What is the damaging effect of this injury you ask? (For no story is complete without learning about how the subject fares in the future - like watching the credits at the end of Animal House when they tell you where all the characters are now). Well, it seems that when the docs cut under my eyelid to get at the muscle they didn't sew it up quite right. So now, when I get all tired and my left eyelid gets appropriately puffy my right eyelid folds over and looks oddly unliddy. That might not sound too bad (and in reality it isn't. Remember, though, that I am a neurotic), but whenever I look in the mirror after not getting enough sleep I see a lopsided gaze staring back at me - so much for modern surgery correcting our flaws.