Contacts: The Devil Himself

I. Hate. Contacts. 

For years I've been debating on getting 1-day disposable contacts for swimming/hiking/whatever, but I always put it off because I really hate putting things in my eyes. Hate it. I've worn glasses since I was 6 years old and I'm perfectly content with it... mostly. 

In the summer, hiking with glasses can get kind of annoying because they move around your sweaty face, but I used Croakie's to keep them in place and it worked out fine. Winter is the bigger problem: they often fog up quickly and no anti-fog product I have used yet has worked well (thought I just bought Cat Crap, we'll see how that goes). So, finally I said screw it and made an appointment.

Everything went smoothly, my prescription had barely changed and they had trial ones that they could put my prescription on. A nice man gave me a quick demo with contacts he was wearing. "Okay, we hold the eyelashes to they're out of the way, we open the eye very wide, once the contact is placed on the eye we pull our finger away slowly, close the eye, rub the eye gently, then the contact slips into place" (he said 'we' a lot). Seemed easy enough. He did it in about four seconds. 

It took me an hour and a half to get one in and out.

It started off poorly and continued to digress from there. Thankfully he left me to do it alone after a few minutes. I cannot control the involuntary blink when the thing gets close to my eye. After like AN HOUR I got ONE in, and I am convinced it was a fluke. Total fluke. I asked him if it was the longest it ever took someone, he said, "no, once a woman started crying and hitting the table. It made me really uncomfortable." I promised him I wouldn't cry and started on my left eye. After about 15 minutes I decided it probably wasn't going to work. I didn't want to be there for hours, it wasn't worth it. He showed me how to take it out, again doing it in about 2 seconds, and promised me that taking them out is easier. It did take much less time, but it didn't just "pop" out like his did. After about 10 minutes I started to panic that I wouldn't be able to get it out and the doctor would have to do it. If there's anything I hate more than putting things in/taking things out of my eyes, it's someone else doing it to me. I could feel the frustration and panic building into tears but held back for fear of embarassement and to fulfill my promise to the nice man helping me. I would NOT cry. I finally got the damn thing out. 

I will not be able to wear them on our 2.5 day winter hiking & camping / ski trip over New Years, which is basically the prime example of when I need them. Sigh. I just spent 30 minutes trying again, and while I made some progress it still wasn't graceful and I type this wearing my glasses. I think that in a past life someone tortured me via my eyes, it is the only way to explain my uncontrollable aversion to getting something into my eye. I am scarred for life.

I found some decent advice online that has helped me this time around, but I've found equally as many things like this:

OH IT'S JUST THAT EASY, IS IT?!

Deep breath. PLEASE GIVE ME ADVICE!