Today, I have some complaints about my mom. But first, I want to talk about Cross Country. When I first heard the name Cross Country, I thought we were actually going to cross the country. But no. We don’t cross any country at all. All we do is run laps, and that’s pretty much what Cross Country feels like. When I signed up, I thought we were going to cross some countries, but apparently not.
The only really interesting part of Cross Country is the competitions, especially when we get to destroy another team. We had a competition against BTA, and we did extremely well. Basically, we destroyed them. The first seven places were all Beaver runners, so you could definitely tell who won that race. In Cross Country, only the first eleven places even count, so BTA didn’t really have much of a chance. Not gonna lie, it was a pretty great feeling.
There were also some funny moments during that race. At one point, there was this huge guy running in front of me. I passed him, and he seemed to decide that he needed to sprint to catch up. But somehow, he ended up speed walking instead. That was pretty funny. Another thing happened when I was about to finish the race. We had to run one lap around the baseball field, one lap through the forest, and back, and then do the whole thing twice. But when I was almost at the finish line, I saw this guy who had only just finished his first lap around the baseball field. Dang. Ten minutes? Wow. He was really taking his time.
Unfortunately, not every competition went like that. When we competed against Milton and Dexter, things didn’t exactly go as planned. We pretty much got absolutely crushed. I came in eighth place, which you might think is really bad, but I was actually the second Beaver runner to finish. There was one kid on our team who did really well and finished ahead of me, but the next Beaver runner was me, in eighth place. None of our eighth graders finished ahead of me, so I guess eighth place wasn’t that bad after all. Still, compared with our race against BTA, it was a completely different experience.
Anyway, we have another Cross Country meet tomorrow, and that brings me to something extraordinary that happened today. My mom forgot about my braces appointment.
Getting braces is already annoying enough, but my mom managed to make it a tiny bit worse. Apparently, I had a scheduled appointment today to get my braces adjusted and maybe have the wire changed. The appointment itself wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that my mom forgot to tell me about it. She’s also been sleeping in late ever since school started, but that’s another story.
When my mom contacted the coach and I suddenly found out that I needed to leave Cross Country, I was extremely confused. I thought something big must have happened. Was our house on fire? Was our house getting raided by bears? Were there raccoons dressed in robber uniforms, holding a marker? You know what? Scratch that last one. It wasn’t exactly the smartest idea, but I was trying to figure out what could possibly be happening.
And then I found out it was just a doctor’s appointment. Wow. Not saying my mom did anything terrible. It was just a tiny mistake. But I had actually gotten pretty excited about those raccoons. Imagine having a raccoon as a pillow. I don’t know how soft raccoons are, but they look pretty soft. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to do any raccoony business that day, so I was kind of disappointed.
The appointment also happened right before another competition, which made the timing even more annoying. I really wish school activities and appointments didn’t have to interrupt each other like this, but apparently they do. So I got into the car, went to the orthodontist somewhere near my house, and had my braces adjusted.
But that wasn’t the end of everything. There was another problem, and this one involved my eyes.
My eyesight isn’t exactly the best anymore, and I really don’t want to wear glasses. You do not understand how much I don’t want to wear glasses. Seriously, the level of not wanting to wear glasses is absurd. So instead, I’m trying invisible glasses, which are basically contact lenses. Sounds great, right? Invisible glasses! Perfect! Until you actually try to wear them.
My mom says kids don’t really wear them, and I can kind of understand why, because putting them in is basically torture. For the first two days, I couldn’t even get one into my eye. I kept trying, opening my eyes and attempting to put this big, jolly thing directly onto my eyeball. It was not a pleasant experience at all. But unlike some people, I actually kept trying, because I really, really didn’t want to wear regular glasses.
And eventually, I did it. I actually managed to get the contact lens into my eye. Was it completely painless? Not exactly. But did it work? Yes! And I thought it was worth it.
There was just one tiny problem. I couldn’t get it out.
After struggling for a while, I finally managed to peel it off, and all you could hear was me yelling as the contact lens went flying onto the ground. Well, I wasn’t going to use that one anymore.
My mom explained that the contact lenses I was trying were daily disposable lenses. Apparently, once you take them out, you have to throw them away and use a new pair the next day. Even if you wash them, you’re not supposed to put the same ones back into your eyes. I was pretty confused about that. I mean, why couldn’t I just clean them and use them again? But I didn’t really want to argue with my mom, so I just let it go.
The important thing was that now I knew I could actually put a contact lens into my eye. For a long time, I had been scared that I wouldn’t be able to do it at all. But I did it once, and if I could do it once, I knew I could do it twice. That made me feel a lot better, and I got myself ready to achieve greatness.
Just to find out that I couldn’t do it again.
Well, that’s unfortunate.
But I’m still going to try. Maybe I’ll try those special Ortho-K lenses, or some other kind of contact lenses, because I still really don’t want to wear regular glasses.
Anyway, that’s pretty much what happened today. Cross Country, a braces appointment that my mom forgot to tell me about, some imaginary raccoons, and my struggle with invisible glasses. We’ll see what happens next.
See you in the next episode for another daily update about all the strange things happening in my life.
Leave a comment