This One Time, maybe ten years ago, I decided I was sick of wearing glasses and would laser my eyeballs. Only two places did it in Canberra and both charged a fortune, but there was a place in Sydney that cost less than half. So I hatched a cunning plan; we would drive out to Sydney on a Friday night, get lasered Saturday morning, hang out in a cheap hotel nearby for a few days\u2019 rest, catch the post-op appointment in three days and cruise on back to the capital, glasses-free and fabulous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plan begins to unravel Friday when the government goes and gets itself into a public mess. Normally I try not to care, but because part of my job was supposed to be cleaning up public messes, I don\u2019t get to go home. 5pm comes and goes and I\u2019m still in my office. 6pm and the shouting continues. 7pm I give up, call Jon, ask him to pack me a bag and pick me up on the way through. 8pm and I run out of the building, shouting instructions and promising to clean up by email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We reach Sydney by 10pm, check in to our hotel and sleep, but the next morning I discover that Jon had done a boy pack. Boy. Pack. He\u2019d gone to my fancy underwear drawer, pulled out a few handfuls of lace and ribbons and shoved them into my suitcase. Priorities. Then \u2013 for reasons still unknown to this day \u2013 he\u2019d gone into the back of my wardrobe and pulled out a pink trench coat I\u2019d found on an op shop excursion when I was at university. You know, just in case I wanted something else to wear for three days in Sydney besides lingerie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look, not the biggest problem. We weren\u2019t tourists, and I figure I can pick something up later. I scramble back into my work clothes and we go down the street to the surgery, get lasered in seconds (the barbecue smell the most difficult part of the ordeal) and we\u2019re happily settled back at our hotel by half nine in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s where it gets tricky. The surgery I\u2019d opted for was corneal abrasion, not where they cut and lift the flap, but actually laser-scrape off the top surface of the eye. It\u2019s hella painful. There are anaesthetic eye drops, but you can\u2019t use them because they prevent healing. There are painkillers, but even the strongest don\u2019t do much for a sharp, localised pain like a sandblaster to the eye. So the clinic\u2019s solution; post-op patients were given \u201canti-anxiety\u201d benzodiazepines, the same kind of drug used for insomnia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We instantly embark on the best damn holiday of our lives. I sleep in lace and ribbons for twenty-three hours every day. Jon stays up late watching US news channels and conspiracy docos. Every four hours he rolls me over, gives me some eye drops, makes me drink veggie juice and gives me more pills as the surgery instructed before I lose consciousness again. Why have we never done a surgery holiday before?? This is sheer bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing\u2019s going to de-rail this train, right? Nothing, except\u2026 a fire alarm. A fire alarm?! At some ungodly hour of\u2026 actually I have no damn idea what the time is, although Jon assures me it\u2019s 3am or so. And we have to evacuate. Now. I\u2019m sure we don\u2019t. Jon\u2019s sure we do. I want to argue some more but can\u2019t see anyone to argue with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So now I\u2019m on my way to the hotel foyer, still in my frothiest bullshit underwear, wrapped in the op shop pink trench coat, teetering on my work heels, hiding behind a pair of sunglasses so nobody will scream at the sight of my scorched eyeballs, blind as a bat. Absolutely blind. Jon has his arm around me, he\u2019s telling me when to walk and steering me in different directions. This is fine. I\u2019m managing. It\u2019s all fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until Jon has to sign something. What something? Some register. What register? Some piece of paper stating we\u2019re not dead in a fire? Sounds like bullshit to me. But no, my civic-minded boyfriend plays by the rules, so he props me up against \u2013 a statue? A column? Something hard and cold \u2013 and leaves me alone in a black sea of strangers\u2019 mutterings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m handling this. I\u2019m not handling this. I\u2019m cold, I\u2019m tired, all this lace is itchy, I can\u2019t see a damn thing. I\u2019ve spent two years working sixteen-hour days to clean up other people\u2019s crap and now I want to go to bed, but instead I\u2019m utterly blind and freezing and stuck in some godforsaken hotel foyer and for what? Some dickhead burnt their microwave popcorn? Snuck a cigarette in the bathroom? Was there even a damn fire?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSOMETHING BETTER BE ON FUCKING FIRE,\u201d I shouted at the top of my voice before sliding down the column and falling asleep on the marble floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look, I\u2019d done my best. It was a fair go. I came to briefly a few minutes later when I felt the floor moving under me. I learnt later that Jon had become mates with the night manager\u2019s boyfriend, and together they had decided to load me onto a luggage trolley and roll me back to our room. I was certainly spilling out of my pink trench coat and the draft over my various bits was chilly that close to the floor, but at least the sunglasses stayed firmly on face, protecting my modesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The night manager was only 23, and her decision to call an ambulance (or, you know, police were another option) had been overruled by the cheery can-do attitude of her boyfriend and the vague intimation that I was a minor celebrity and my behaviour was completely normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day I passed post-op and we drove home, and I went back to managing other people\u2019s public crises. Still have the pink trench coat, but I\u2019ve never let Jon pack for me again. And I do wonder if the night manager and her boyfriend watch reality telly shows and social pages still looking for my face. Or some other parts of me they might recognise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feel like buying some lingerie after this story? Of course you do; https:\/\/www.bendonlingerie.com.au\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n