Check List

So, I thought I was completely au courant on the whole aging thing. I thought I had the comprehensive "To Do As One Grows Old" list:

• prod boobs for lumps and bumps
• make sure one's moles remain nicely small and circular
• endure a colonoscopy now and then
• watch one's gums for signs of recession
• beware of new scaly spots on one's skin
• radically reduce one's consumption of fat, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and every other fun thing
• get regular Paps
• monitor one's weight, heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, and whatever else one can assign a number to
• interlace one's fingers with one's toes for a few minutes every day to avoid toe overlap
• walk
• stretch
• exercise
• breathe

Pretty comprehensive list, right? No, wrong. Turns out one must add a new bulletpoint:

• watch out for one's eyelashes

I had no idea. Then my mother-in-law called. She's been struggling for a couple of months with what she thought was dry eyes. Just constant irritation and itching--incredibly annoying and distracting. But the problem lay not in her eye's liquidity, but rather, in her treasonous eyelashes. They're turning inward and scratching her eye. So, she explained as I listened in growing nausea, the eye doctor gave her a shot in her eye--yes, he stuck a needle in her eye while she sat there in the office, fully conscious, without pain killers or laughing gas or weed or geez, even Tylenol--and then put several stitches in her eyelid to keep it from curling under.

Good lord. I had no idea such a future lurked. I've always been rather fond of my eyelashes. They're long and thick and curly. And--now I know--they're just waiting to turn on me.