Lotion is for hands, not eyes

Mr. T got off the plane with us on Sunday, and got on another one on Wednesday for China. Recent discussions with Trailhead Kid:

TK (emerging from bathroom at lunchtime): Mommy, have you ever spit food into the toilet?
Me (sensing where this is going): No, because spitting food into the toilet is unacceptable.
TK: (walking back into the bathroom): Because I've never done that! (Flushes toilet.)

______________________

TK (sitting in time-out for previous infraction): Mommy!
Me: What?
TK: I can't see my tongue!!
Me: Uh-oh. Someone alert the press.
TK: Can I go look in the mirror at my tongue??
Me: No.
TK: Why not?
Me: Because you're in a time-out.
TK: Oh dear, you're mean.
______________________

TK (in time-out again for bugging me mercilessly while trying to send an e-mail to Mr. T): Mommy? Can I get up?
Me: Are you gonna harass me?
TK: No. I'm gonna harass Thomas.
______________________

Meanwhile, remember this discussion with Mr. T from April when I was in China?

"He would check on me in between meetings, torn between sympathy and frustration that I was missing part of the trip. This led to the following conversation, part of which Wasteland posted for your reading pleasure last week:

"I've been where you are, you know."

"What? No you haven't. I don't recall you spending a night throwing up on previous trips."

"No, but I've had diarrhea."

"Diarrhea? Please. I aspired to diarrhea last night. I prayed for diarrhea. When it finally arrived, I threw diarrhea a goddamn ticker tape parade, because diarrhea is like winning the fucking Powerball compared to throwing up seafood and bits of your stomach lining in a hotel room in South China every twenty minutes until there is nothing left to throw up anymore."

This was clearly inarguable, and, apparently recognizing that this was not an argument he was going to win, he went back to being sensitive."

Alas, Mr. T now knows what it's like to be in South China and be in bodily peril. In Guangzhou, he realized he was out of contact solution. This is a problem for Mr. T, because he might as well be blind without contacts or glasses. So he purchased something ominously labeled as "eye lotion," and proceeded to soak his contact lenses in it overnight, and placed them in his eyes in the morning.

Mistake.

Excruciating redness and burning ensued. He examined the label, which contained a warning that had escaped his notice: "not to be used with contacts at least 30 minutes after use." He spent the day in extreme pain, but claims to be pain-free as of this morning.

I certainly don't mean to convey the impression that I'm experiencing schadenfreude or at all find this funny. Mr. T is the polar opposite of a hypochondriac; he simply ignores symptoms that any normal person would find alarming. In fact, if he were any Monty Python character, he'd be the Black Knight:



"'Tis just a flesh wound!"

I extracted a promise from him that if the pain returns or he notices anything at all amiss with his eyes, he'll return to Hong Kong and get some medical assistance.

He actually agreed, which tells me he must have been in pain indeed.