I have a thing in my eye.  I don’t know what it is.  I can’t see it.  I can’t touch it with my finger, like, to dig it out or anything.  All I can do is feel it on my eyeball, possibly pinned up inside my eyelid, and it’s making me crazy.

It struck last night while I was hanging out at Ian and Shannon’s.* One moment I was laughing about Ian carrying The Zombie Invasion Survival Guide around Iraq and the next I was tearing up like one of those people who have emotions.  Something had gotten into my eye.  I made a few half-hearted digs at the table (because I have terrible manners like that) and excused myself to the bathroom.  I know the drill.

Okay, I get a lot of things stuck in my eyes.  I have really long eyelashes (jealous?) and stuff just gets stuck in them.  Mostly dog hair, which makes sense because everything I own – including my eyes, apparently – is covered in dog hair.  I’m usually very patient at the first sign of eye-stuck-in-ness.  I go to the restroom, lean real close to the mirror, and pluck the offender from my lashes.  Easy peasy Japaneasy.

But last night, straining by the dim-yet-stylish lighting in Ian and Shannon’s bathroom, there was no offender.  Not even a rogue bent eyelash.  There was nothing in my eye, yet my eyeball burned and twitched and set off every allergy receptor in my face.  Soon, I had a waterfall eye and a trickling nose and I really, really wanted to sneeze.

I managed to get through one game of Wii bowling before I had to make Graham drive me home.  Eight hours of sleep and one shower later, I still have Ramses Pox in my eye.

Here’s the thing about Ramses Pox – it’s totally made up.  Brennan made it up for me.  Brennan is my work friend (I guess he’s my real life friend, too; I have drunkenly puked in his bathroom) whose cubicle is right next to mine.  On the other side of me is my friend Chris.  Between Brennan and Chris, I laugh until I cry every.  Single.  Day.  And it’s stuff that no reasonable person would ever find funny.  Trust me.

A conversation will start out like we’re normal people talking about bowling leagues or bike rides or tacos.  Something completely banal.  Within three minutes, though, usually less, things have careened off into the ridiculous, and one of us is singing “O, Canada” in Ralph Wiggum’s voice or re-telling the Urban Turkey story (some other time, I swear).  It makes no sense.  No sense at all, yet we laugh anyway.  So yesterday, when Brennan and I invented 12 Rounds With Humungo the Clydesdale and the Ramses Pox, I knew the day was done.

The Ramses Pox was invented as a disease contracted via the eyes from reading stuff on my desk (Brennan: “Too late now, you shouldn’t have read it.  You’re effed.“), but now I’ve decided that it applies to my current condition.  Which is this:

And yes, I am so ballsy enough to take a photo a) in the morning, b) without makeup, and c) while I’m still wearing a pink towel around my head from the shower.

*In my head, Shannon and I are having a “who can cook the best food for other people in our own houses” competition.  She is totally kicking my ass.