I need to finish writing a talk that I’m giving next week, and I am allowing myself the break slash distraction of recording this episode of Your Daily Lex, the show whose theme song goes exactly like this.

Your Daily Lex.

So I went to urgent care yesterday.

And by the way, if you hear some extra sounds in the background, I am multitasking.

While I’m recording this episode, I’m also going to refill my pill bottle, and there’s an old episode of Your Daily Lex from the past year or so where I talk about all the different pills I take.

So if you hear some of those sounds, that’s what’s happening.

I’m refilling my old person pill bottle thing.

Pill case?

Let’s go with case.

It’s not a bottle.

It’s a case with the days of the week labeled.

You get it.

But so yesterday I went to urgent care.

In the morning, yesterday morning, which I guess was Tuesday morning, as this will often happen before Wednesdays, when I was putting in my contacts, they bothered me.

The right eye felt weird, and I was annoyed at this annoying, painful right eye thing, but the contact was improperly, and so I moved on with my day.

And then the eye felt fine, and then it would hurt, and then it would feel fine, and then it would hurt.

The left contact was fine all day.

I could see nothing wrong, but I could see all the things I wanted to see, meaning the contact was working.

It was accurately correcting my vision.

Moved on with my day.

Intermittent pain, mostly fine.

At the end of the day, I was supposed to go to improv last night, and I had to bail for a variety of reasons.

And one subtle but helpful part of making that choice was that I’m away tonight for an Avenue Q rehearsal, and then this weekend I’m going to Richmond, Virginia for a comedy sports thing.

And so I was like, you know, this is my last night to spend any time with Liam.

I didn’t have the same thought with regard to Sierra, because Sierra was going to a rehearsal of her own last night, so I wouldn’t be able to see her anyway.

So I’m going to be home with Liam, and he and I are doing some fun things together.

We watch an episode of The West Wing, we’re in season five, so all the characters now talk differently since Aaron Sorkin’s no longer on the show, or writing on the show.

But so then Liam’s going to practice some music for Rock Shop, and I say, hey, while you’re doing this, I’m going to take out my contacts.

And this was maybe eight o’clock at night or so.

I don’t typically take out my contacts at that time.

I take out my contacts right before I go to bed, so sometime between 10, 15, and 11, let’s say, most of the time.

But I was like, let me just deal with it now, and I’ll switch to glasses.

Again, extremely rare for me to do.

Go upstairs, and can’t get that contact out.

And I decide I’m not going to take the left contact out, which I know I can do easily, because as long as I got the right one there, I’m going to keep them both in.

And I’m trying various things, I’m really doing a nice job of not panicking, of staying calm.

I am not freaked, I know that if I need, when Lauren comes home, I could potentially have Lauren help take it out, or I could always go to see an emergency professional.

And so I text Lauren, and I’m like, the only thing is, I don’t want to wait for you to come home at 10, 30, or 11, and then enlist your help, because if you can’t, and then I have to go to the ER, that’s really annoying.

Lauren’s like, why don’t you call my mom?

I bet my mom would be good at this.

So I text, or actually, I call Lauren’s mom, who does not answer.

She called back hours later, I didn’t answer.

Neither of us ever texted the other, so she has no idea what the problem was, and she doesn’t listen to this podcast, so she may never know.

But at any rate, I can’t get it out.

I’m following various articles, I was looking at a Warby Parker article that has great SEO for when you search for how to get rid of a stuck, or how to take out a stuck contact lens.

And it was in the right place.

I’ve talked previously on this show about contact lens issues, but this contact lens was where it was supposed to be, in terms of right over my eyeball, right in the middle.

I just could not get it to budge an inch.

So the article that Warby Parker had was like, ooh, fish oil pills are loud, was like, put a lot of drops in, and then rub the eyelid gently, and then blink a lot first, and whatever.

And occasionally, I felt like some progress was being made, but the contact was not coming out.

It would not move when I was trying to remove it.

And it doesn’t feel great.

This whole situation is not a great feeling situation.

By the way, if you’re finding the sounds of the pills annoying, know that I am too, and I probably won’t do this again.

But it is kind of a fun multitasking thing for me to do right now.

So I decided, you know what, I am going to go to urgent care.

Well, first I was going to go to the ER, and then I decided to go to urgent care, one, because I thought it’d be less crowded, and two, because my insurance makes me pay $75 to go to urgent care, and $150 to go to the ER, fine.

So I tell Liam, hey, you’re on your own, leave the house, start to plow out at the driveway, turn back in, because I didn’t have a mask, and I didn’t want to go to urgent care without a mask.

That seemed crazy.

And then headed to urgent care, and it closed at 9, which helps me remember that indeed I am correct about what time it was, because now it’s maybe 8.30, 8.20 by the time I was heading there.

Let’s say 8.20.

I get there.

There’s some people coming out.

There’s two people in the waiting room who are together, only one of them is the patient, and there’s a receptionist.

I should note, no one is wearing a mask there at the front of house.

Back of house, every medical professional person was masked up, as was I, because I figure sick people go there.

I don’t want to get whatever they have.

So the receptionist wants to know why I’m there, and I explain, and she says, oh, that happened to me not too long ago, and that is painful.

I’m like, yeah, yeah, it is.

It’s getting worse.

She’s like, okay.

And then the nurse comes and sees me once I’m in the exam room.

She’s like, why are you here?

I’m like, because of this contact thing of mine.

She’s like, oh, okay.

Well, the medical professional will be in soon.

I don’t know what medical professional was.

I don’t know if it was a doctor or a nurse or what, because the person who came in said, hi, I’m the provider.

Okay.

And she says, so what are you doing here tonight?

I don’t know why they all have to ask me.

I guess it’s confirming that I’m who they think I am, and I explain once again why I’m there, and she’s like, well, let’s take a look.

Let’s have you lie back, which I do.

And she takes a look, and she puts a glove on, and she’s like, you’re sure it’s there?

I’m like, oh, yeah, it’s there.

And then when she looks, she can see it too.

And she goes, strike one, tries to get it, doesn’t come out.

She’s like, I think I can get it, though.

Goes right in again, takes it out.

Didn’t bother me at all.

I didn’t blink.

I didn’t hesitate.

She didn’t blink.

She didn’t hesitate.

She took it out.

Then she hands me the contact lens, which makes sense, right?

Because if it’s a lens that I would keep, then I got to keep it, potentially.

Makes sense.

And then I’m like, okay, thank you.

That’s great.

I throw the contact lens away.

I’m like, is there a restroom I can go use to take out the other contact?

Because I don’t want to be wearing one, and I have glasses in my car.

And she’s like, I can just take it out for you.

I was like, okay.

So I lie back down, and she takes out the other one.

And then she hands that one to me.

She’s like, I don’t know why I handed the second one to you.

I know you’re going to throw it away.

That was weird.

I should have just thrown it at myself.

I’m like, no, that’s fine.

And then I went home in glasses on my merry way.

I called my parents on the way home to give them this update, whatever, and my dad’s like, you know, make sure you don’t wear your contacts tomorrow.

And that was my plan, was to not wear them today.

But at some point, vanity and glasses annoyance took over.

So about halfway through the day, I did put in my contacts.

Sorry, dad.

Sorry, eyeballs.

But it feels great.

I feel no problem.

And I let my eye go naked until at least noon.

So a pretty big gap for it.

Worst case, I’ll permanently damage my eye and never see it again.

But that’d be a very bad worst case.

Anyway, happy Wednesday.

Goodbye.

Lex.

Bye.