The Shiner

I'm in the middle of trying to plan a reunion party for my old football team and while I was doing so, I thought about all of the fun times that I had playing flag football. And the bad times. Of course, with every sport, there is potential for injuries, some serious and some minor. While I did suffer from 2 major injuries, I only suffered from a few bumps and bruises... and of course, one shiner.

It was the last play of the game. We were in the playoffs and the game was very intense. I ran towards the quarterback of the opposing team, reached down for her flag and she elbowed me in the eye. I don't know how many of you have ever had a black eye but holy cow do they hurt! (Don't worry, I didn't cry or anything. I just couldn't open my eye for about a day and a half.)

I obviously didn't have the shiner in this picture but these are a few of my friends from that team, along with my dad who was our coach.

The next morning, I woke up and my eye was a complete mesh of purple, blue and black. I dreaded going to school that Monday because I knew that there was no possible way that the shiner would be gone by then. (I got the black eye on a Saturday.) But of course, I couldn't skip school over something so little, so I went to school that Monday, ready for the constant, "What happened to your face?" questions. Instead, I got something that I wasn't ready for.

My friend came up to me and said, "Why did you only put eye shadow on one eye?" I looked at her like she was crazy and she repeated the question. I told her that it was a black eye and she was like, "Oh, okay. I thought you were just lazy." I shrugged it off, thinking that there was no way that I'd get that reaction again.

Boy was I wrong.

Flag football is a big deal where I come from. :)

I'm not even joking. Almost everyone that I talked to that day asked me why I only put eye shadow on my left eye. This didn't make any sense to me at all. If I saw someone with a shiner, I'd never think that they would do something like that.

The end of the school day finally came. It was time to go to work. I worked as a cashier at the time and I had a lot of regular customers. I tried to cover up the shiner as best as I could and nothing would cover it. My uniform at work was green, so I didn't want to actually put purple eye shadow on the other eye because I thought that it wouldn't look good.

Much to my surprise, I kept getting the eye shadow question and kept having to explain to people that I had a black eye. It got very tiresome but eventually, of course, it faded.

At the time, it was pretty annoying and frustrating to keep having to explain it over and over. But now, it's something that I look back on and laugh at. It's funny how life works, isn't it?

-Chelsea