Two things to know about me – I’m blind as a bat… and I like bats.
Well, any critter really. The bats come from finding eleven of them stashed in my curtains in my bedroom early one morning while of a tender age and still living in Norfolk. Cute little things. None of them bit me as I shooed them outside.
Here, there are no curtains to speak of, and the usual critters hanging upside down from the rafters tend to be geckos. Nice and friendly – like the bats, they enjoy a fresh mosquito to munch on.
Now, this thing about being short-sighted. I got my first pair of specks when it became apparent I couldn’t see the writing on the blackboard. In fact, I couldn’t even see the blackboard.
I was given some horn-rimmed glasses (we call them glaffas in Spanglish) and thus equipped, I went through my formative years, leaving the school choir when my balls dropped (it was a mutual decision) and f
inding new and interesting pass-times, some of which involved my specks inappropriately steaming up.
Horrid things. Wandering around looking out of a pair of magnifying glasses from the wrong side while covered in spots - that, and being made to wear shorts. It's a part of my life which I try hard to forget.
When it came the time to cautiously making myself available to the Gentle Sex, I thought I would switch from my specs (now much scratched) and try out instead some fashionable blue-tinted bottle-bottomed contact lenses.
Which have stood me in remarkably good stead ever since.
The other day, while preparing myself for the evening’s adventures ahead, I was to be found taking a shower in the family hip-bath. My eyes, like the rest of me, were naked (and pink).
And what is that down near my feet, thrashing about and hoping to escape the water. I reached down to rescue it – it was a panicking gecko, poor little guy. But wait, let me just get a little closer to have a better look. I dropped onto all-fours and held my face a few inches away…
Before letting out a shriek and abruptly abandoning the tub.
Bloody thing was a giant centipede.