Eye'll Be Seeing You

Charlie scratched his cornea last week.  It was awful.  He’s never been so upset.  He absolutely refused to open his eyes, but I did get him to giggle a little when I told him this story in the doctor's office. He made me tell it several times.

Once there was a little boy named Charlie.  He was a good little boy and and liked to have lots of fun.  One day though he wasn’t having any fun because he hurt his eye.  His eye hurt really, really bad and he couldn’t even open it.  He wouldn’t even open his eyes for ice cream or to watch Power Rangers.  His eye hurt too bad.  Finally, Charlie decided he had enough and said, “I’m tired of this hurting eye.  I’m going to go get a new one.”

So, Charlie went to the store.  He told the salesman, “My eye hurts.  I want to buy a new one.”

The salesman said, “Have you ever considered replacing your eye with another ear?  It’s very fashionable right now.”  

“Oh, I guess I could try it,” Charlie replied.

So Charlie decided to try having three ears and one eye instead of two ears and two eyes.  He put in his extra ear and went home.

The next morning when his mother shouted upstairs, “Wake up, Charlie, time for school,” Charlie sat straight up and said, “geesh, Mom, not so loud!”  

Then, he went to school and sat down.  His teacher said, “Children, please take out your workbooks” and Charlie said, “Ouch, you don’t have to yell!”

On the playground, it was so loud, Charlie about fell over from all the noise.  So, he went back to the store and told the salesman that he couldn’t have three ears.  It was just too loud.  

The salesman said, “How about a special trick eye?”  

“What’s that?” Charlie replied.  “Take a look,” the man said pulling out an eye that looked quite normal.  “Every time you wink, it squirts.”

Charlie liked to do tricks and liked to be funny so he popped the eye in and went home.  He saw his sister Catherine first.  “Hi, Catherine” he said with a sneaky smile.  

“Hi Charlie.  How’s your eye?”  

“It’s better.” He winked and squirted his sister right in the nose.  

“Ack!” she said.  “What happened?”

“Dunno.” Charlie said with a mischievous grin. 

The next day at school, Charlie saw Freddy.  Freddy liked to push on the playground.  This time when Freddy pushed Charlie, Charlie winked and water squirted right into Freddy’s ear.  

“Hey, what was that?” Freddy shouted.

“Dunno,” Charlie smiled.  He was really enjoying his trick eye.

Then, Charlie went home and saw his mom.  He winked just for fun and squirted her too.  She froze and said, “What’s going on with your eye?  You’d better tell me, Mister!”

Charlie confessed that he had switched out his old eye with a new trick eye.  “Oh no you don’t” his mom said as she marched him back to the store.  “Charlie eyes are special and there will be no trading for any trick eyes.  I like you with the eyes you were born with.”  Charlie’s mom made the salesman give Charlie back his original eye.  The salesman really liked Charlie’s eye, but he reluctantly gave Charlie’s beautiful, original eye back.  It didn’t squirt but Charlie’s family loved him best just the way he came and knowing that in the end was the best anyway.