In the depths of the sink...

When I tell people I have hard contacts I get the same response everytime: "Why?" I have had the same pair of contacts ever since ninth grade. I'm now a sophomore in college. When I first got contacts the doctor recommended hard ones because I had astigmatism and they would be better for my eyes. I've always been very proud of the fact that I've never lost my contacts as tiny and as slippery as they are.

Last night I was so tired. My eyes were hurting because they were dry and my contacts with no moisture in my eyes wasn't helping matters. I popped out my right contact and noticed there was some gunk on it, so I tried to get it off with my finger before putting it in the case to soak for the night. It slipped out of my fingertips and down the drain. Never had this happened to me before! I proceeded to take the stopper out of the drain and used a q-tip to prod around the sides of the pipe. Everytime I brought up a wad of black junk and masses of hair. Figuring I'd have more control with my fingers, I ditched the q-tip, donned some plastic cleaning gloves and stuck my finger down the hole. Nothing. Just more black crap.

I was determined to find my contact. I am not a plumber and I have never dabbled in the idea of becoming a plumber so I don't have a clue how drains and sinks work down below the counter. I unscrewed several knobs and took off the "U" pipe, and out poured a bunch of sick looking gray water. The smell. The smell was AWFUL! I don't know how many years of crap was down that drain, but I could tell it hadn't been cleaned in a while. My roommate Kami helped me flush water down the drain and catch it in a milk jug. We then strained the water out and looked through all the crap with tweezers. Nothing.

I was about to give up and accept the fact that I was going to be blind for a few days when Kami suggested we flush it one more time. Lo and behold at the very end of that batch of icky water was my contact! I could not believe it. I really didn't think we'd find it. I immediately put my contact in the case and moved it away from the sink completely. It was an adventure trying to figure out how to reassemble the sink.