Eye Popper


By Phil Scovell






 The term, "Eye Popper," or sometimes used when saying, "It was an eye 
popping experience," has a simple
meaning.  It means (to surprise, emotionally shock, sudden revelation), as 
in, (a bolt out of the blue).  There is
another word, not often used, but describes "eye popper" quite adequately, 
and that is "serendipity," It means finding
something of great value, an utter surprise in an unexpected and 
unanticipated place).  Such is the nature of a recent
experience of mine.

 I was walking into the kitchen of our home.  We have a tall aluminum baby 
gate at one entrance to the
kitchen the blocks small grandchildren, and pets, from entering the kitchen 
without permission.  Although, at this
writing, all present grandchildren can let themselves in and out but I 
digress.

 So I was walking through the gate and I had a tissue in my hands and 
dabbing at the corner of one of my
artificial eye.  Somehow, the tissue stuck briefly to the artificial eye and 
when I pulled the tissue back, my eye
popped out and began bouncing around on the hardwood floor of the kitchen 
like a ping pong ball.  I quickly kicked
the gate shut so no dogs could get into the kitchen and eat my 4,000 dollar 
eye.  In spite of my age, and aching back
and leg muscles, I hit the floor because I heard one dog had already made it 
into the kitchen.  I reached forward to
grab him, yelling all the way for him to get back but he had already found 
what had popped out of my head.  "Oh,
no," I said frantically, but when the new basset hound puppy saw me 
scrambling on hands and knees toward him, he
dropped what he was checking out to see if it were something tossed to him 
to eat.  I got it!  Man!  Did I breathe a
sigh of relief over that one but I nearly had a heart attack first.

 What am I going to tell the doctor and insurance company?  "My dog ate my 
eye?"  Sure!  And a chicken
has lips, too, as my mother-in-law used to always say.