Charlene said that dinner would be ready in about thirty minutes, the boys were happily playing in the attic, and I saw an opportunity. An opportunity for a Nerf gun ambush.  Gearing up, I knew that I only had one good shot at surprising the kids.  Crawling up the attic stairs with Nerf gun in hand, I took aim and fired.  Completely taken off guard, I landed several good hits and scurried down the stairs, as the boys squealed and shouted.  Reloading, I was met by a fully armed squad of Nerf children.

Exchanging fire with my youngest son Ben, suddenly there was a flash of light followed by pain. Sharp pain.  In my hurry to surprise the boys, I had forgotten my safety glasses.  The Nerf disk had slammed directly into my open right eye.  From the feel of the impact, my guess was that my eye had been pushed to the back of my head.  Crumpling up on the floor (there really was not any need to fall down, but it seemed appropriately dramatic and it did halt the Nerf barrage), I promised myself that I would never again forget my safety glasses.

Hobbling off to the bathroom, I looked into the mirror. Nothing appeared to be wrong and I could see, despite the sharp pain.  The incident made me wonder, why they don’t sell Nerf brand safety goggles?  Seems like an easy $15 bucks to be made.  Also, when did Nerf abandon their core business of sporting equipment?  When did they move toward supplying home armories?  My guess was that one of their foam rubber footballs still would have hurt really bad slamming into my retina.  If I’m not bleeding, is it really worthy of a trip to urgent care or would this be more appropriate for a scheduled doctor’s appointment?  Good thing that my eye appeared to have been plenty hard for deflection purposes.

Now on Day Three, the pain is nearly gone and all of the cones and rods appear to be functioning fine. Only every now and then do I stare into the mirror and wonder, “Is my right eye bigger now?”  No, stop it.  You are fooling yourself.  “Wait, is it getting red?  Is there bleeding against the grey matter in my hypochondriac brain?”  Never mind, there are children to surprise.  There are Nerf battles to be won.  Get back into the game, Nerf soldier.  Just make sure to first put on your safety glasses, dumb bunny.

My eyes still look the same (I think…), but oh no! Now, my nose is crooked!  #horribleluck #selfdiagnosedhypochondriac