�Continued from yesterday.

I refused to observe the surgery beforehand, my ingenious plan being to lie back and pretend this simply wasn�t happening to me. Here�s the play-by-play.

I blindly entered the room, sat in a chair, and put a blue surgery room shower cap looking thing over my hair. They asked if I would like to hug the stuffed teddy bear, or the stuffed football. I declined both, but then, through my mellowness, got mouthy and for some reason, kind of cocky.

�That�s not a teddy bear. That�s a stuffed pig. I may be blind and buzzed and wearing funny headgear, but I can still tell a pig from a bear, sillyheads. Don�t even try to pull one over on ME.�

They lay me back and put more numbing drops in my right eye. Dr. Surgeon taped my top and bottom lashes out of the way, then put some sort of circle thing that pulled my eyelids far open. It didn�t hurt, but it stretched my skin and wasn�t the best feeling I�d had all day.

I was instructed to stare at a red light shining into my eyeball. A patch was placed over my other eye, but they asked me to try to keep it open, because that would keep me from constricting my muscles in a certain way and just make everything easier. (This was no small feat, what with my buddy Prince Valium coursing through my system.)

Then, they began the procedure. He told me when he was cutting the flap, but I couldn�t feel that at all. For each step, a nurse or Dr. Surgeon would count down, �Five, four, three, two, one.� This was incredibly helpful, because if it hurt a little or I was uncomfortable, I knew I only had to be still for a few more seconds. (Take notes, Dr. Dentist.)

I couldn�t see the flap being lifted, and I couldn�t see the laser cutting into my cornea, but I could smell my corneal tissue burning, which is pretty gross and kinda cool, all at the same time. It smelled a bit like burnt hair. I could, however, see when the flap was being replaced. It was a bit like saran wrap being laid over my pupil. Then, the weirdest step of all � he brushed the flap, to ensure it would lay flat, and to make sure there was no debris in my eyes, and that everything was smooth as silk. I could actually see two little white brushes, brushing my eyeball.

The removed the medieval contraptions holding my eyelids open Duck a la Clockwork Orange, and I was finished. My right eye took 32 seconds.

My left eye was more of the same, with a few exceptions.

One, the circle pry-eye-open thing hurt a bit. Not enough to make me want to jump out of the chair, but I think I even said, �Ouch� once. Two, it was harder to keep my other eye open during the procedure, since it had just been sliced with a white hot laser and all. Three, it took 35 seconds.

When I opened my new eyeballs, the first thing I saw was the teddy bear sitting on the counter.

The PINK, Not-A-Pig Teddy Bear.

LASIK Lesson Learned: When we�re on Valium, blind as a bat, and about to undergo LASIK, it might not be the best time to be cocky about what we can and can�t see with our own two eyes.