My One Day as a Pirate

When I was in seventh grade, I was taking an elective art class. During one of the assignments, we were coloring with colored pencils. I guess I pressed too hard, and the tip of the pencil broke off…and flew right into my eye! The teacher tried to help me get it out by splashing water into my eye. She tried eye drops. She tried to see if she could get it with her finger. But nothing worked.

Finally, she called my mom to come get me, and I was rushed to the eye doctor. The optometrist used a giant cotton swab to gently fish this broken piece of leaf out of my eye. Unfortunately, because it had stayed in there so long and moved around a lot, I had severe scratches on my eyeball. So, he had to put some special drops in my eye to protect it and allow it to heal. The other unfortunate thing was that the drops wouldn’t stay in my eye on their own, so I had to wear an eye patch for the next 24 hours.

While it may sound cool at first, I mean who wouldn’t want to look like a pirate for a day, it was in fact the exact opposite of cool. This thing was white, not black, and didn’t come with a sweet skull and crossbones or even a giant ruby. And it was unceremoniously taped to my face instead of having a strap that went around my head. I looked stupid. And being that kids are cruel at any age, I talked my mom into letting me stay home until I could take it off.

So, my one day as a pirate was a disaster. Instead of riding free on the ocean waves, feeling a salty breeze against my face, and smelling the burnt odor of gunpowder as my ship took down a trading vessel…I spent it on land, cooped up at home, sleeping. Oh well, at least I still have use of my eye.