Evil Eyes

/ Diane Henders

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my mouth keeps me in trouble.  I’d like to pretend it’s only my mouth that’s the problem, but now my eyes are getting into the act, too.

It started innocently enough.  One day I was out for a walk when I spotted a poster advertising “CREEPFEST”.

At the time, I questioned the necessity for a festival dedicated to creeps when pretty much any ride on the C-Train qualifies as a creepfest, but, hey, what do I know?  And anyway, I live a sheltered life.  It might have been a film festival for horror movies or something.  Later, I discovered it was actually advertising “CREEKFEST”, a family fun day down at our local Fish Creek Park.

Honest mistake.

But it got worse.  I was skimming a document online when my eyeballs snagged on the phrase “making goats is the first step toward success…”

Excuse me?

Success in what, exactly?  And do I really want to achieve the kind of success that requires me (or anyone for that matter) to screw goats as a first step?

When I re-read it, I discovered to my relief that the word in question was “goals”, not “goats”.  But apparently, making goats was indeed the first step… down a sad and sordid path.  It was only the beginning of the mutiny currently being staged by my evil eyes.

I misread a quotation:  “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the boner”.  Granted, the original quote wasn’t exactly inspirational even when read correctly, but that extra ‘r’ on the end just didn’t help the situation at all.

I misread a friend’s tweet:  “Think I’ll take up lap-dancing”. I was halfway through a bottle of brain bleach before I realized the tweet actually read “Think I’ll take up tap-dancing”.

Which, frankly, was disturbing enough, but it didn’t actually warrant a brain cleanse.

Even my favourite recipe website wasn’t safe.  I glanced at a recipe I’d printed, and misread the header as “cocksucker” instead of “cooks.com”.  You’d think that’d be a bit of a stretch, but the “-om” was covered by another sheet of paper, so the only letters visible were “cooks.c”.  And the ‘c’ and ‘o’ are quite similar in their header font.

But still.  Come on, eyeballs, gimme a break here.

If one wanted to get all persnickety about this, one might argue that there’s nothing at all wrong with my eyes, and that the problem actually originates a couple of inches behind my eyeballs.

Our theoretical persnickety commentator might also add that if one has a more-than-passing familiarity with words like ‘boner’ and ‘lap-dancing’ and ‘cocksucker’, one can’t reasonably feign shock and outrage at reading them, whether or not they’re in appropriate context (if there is actually an “appropriate” context for those particular words).

And if those were the only words I’d misread, I’d have to concede the point.

But making goats?

Nope.  I’ll admit to being slightly warped, but I’m not that twisted.

Maybe it’s time for reading glasses.

27 thoughts on “Evil Eyes”

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  8. I think it’s time to break out the reading glasses for sure. Maybe you could consider having a reading brain as well, since the problem might not entirely be ocular (which I will point out is a word meaning to do with sight and the eyes, just in case you mis-read).

    Cheers!

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    • “Ocular” – thanks for clarifying that. *snickers*

      A reading brain sounds like a good idea, but I’m not sure whether you can get an Otterbox for that. I’d want a durable, waterproof case to prevent damage and unsightly fluid leaks when I carry my reading brain around…

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  11. oh my gosh Diane. If thats what you “see” during daytime, I can’t even begin to imagine what you “see” when you go to sleep…lol. You know what? I’ll just simply assume its probably about motorcycles and riding the open roads, and leave it at that 🙂

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  13. I was going to offer my suggestions as to what’s behind your misreadings, but as I kept reading, I realized you answered them for me. 🙂

    I, too, am guilty of some doozy misreads, though, as is so often the case, I can’t think of any now. I will tonight at 3 am, I’m sure.

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