Regarding the Rarity and the Red-Hair-ity

The next time someone tells you that you're "one in a million", don't take it as a compliment. It's a curse, really.

I'm usually one to take responsibility for my life, but there are some parts of the story where I simply have to blame my passive-recessive genes. Because rare things happen to red heads, and we freckled freaks are rare things in and of ourselves.

For example, did you know that red heads are harder to anesthetize? I didn't need to read the New England Journal of Medicine to draw that conclusion. I could have told you that two minutes into my root canal. And don't get me started on the epidural. Let's just say it's a good thing red heads have a very high pain tolerance.

Oh, and by the way, I hear we're going to be extinct soon, which means we'll have to go live under the coastal Marsh with the dinosaurs. (Yes, that's where Caed insists the dinosaurs live now that they are "egg-stinked". It's my fault really, as I made the mistake of trying to explain fossils to a four year old.)

So here's my latest story, in support of the hypothesis on the link between red hair and freakishness:

Enter the ophthalmologist, my LASIK surgeon, who performed a second corrective surgery (rarely needed) on my baby blues two weeks ago. She came in assuming everything was normal. First mistake. She must not have noticed the flaming red hair.

Here's what I heard as she read my chart and examined my eyes:

"Hmm....that's so strange. Wow, what is going on here? This doesn't make any sense. No sense at all. Let me take another look. Hmm, I've never seen anything like this. Your left eye is really far sighted--this just doesn't add up AT ALL. It was right on track last week. This is SO WEIRD. Hmmmm."

Luckily she left me with these reassuring words as we scheduled an appointment for the next morning, "In all my 35 years in practice, I've never seen anything like this."

Beautiful. Just beautiful! If only I could see the irony here. But I literally can't see anything right now, at least not with my swollen, far-sighted mess of a left eye. My right eye is doing ALL the work right now, and getting pretty durn tired of it.

So right now, when I say I can't see straight, it is not a cliche for confusion (although that may also be true). My left eye knows not what my right eye is doing, and my right eye is pretty convinced my left eye has had one too many margaritas. The right eye can be kind of judgy like that. But you know what they say about judging and stuff in your eye. And seriously, if there is a big ol' plank in my right eye, I'm sooo screwed.

So right now, I await the dawning of Friday when I will return to the doctor to see if they have a cure for follicle-induced freakishness. In the meantime, I'm crying a river of artificial tears.

(Oh, and I'm channeling my inner Anne of Green Gables. Because if there is anyone who knows how to turn a wayward left eye into a drama of the most demonstrative proportions, it's the lovely Anne Shirley. I'm thinking I'll wear my dress with puffed sleeves to my appointment tomorrow....)