Baggy Eyes

I have a perplexing problem. I have awakened this morning with bags under my eyes. The perplexing problem is that I ONLY get bags under my eyes if I wake up and then go back to sleep. It doesn’t matter if I’ve only slept 3 hours or if I’ve slept 12 hours, I will not get bags under my eyes if I sit up right away. In other words, for those of you who still give a rip but aren’t comprehending what I’m saying, it is not the lack of sleep but the LACK OF GETTING UP that causes the puffy swelling under my eyes.

Here’s a pop quiz. You don’t know me, but can you guess what one of my top ten favorite things to do in the universe is? If you cannot guess this, you have the brain of a cabbage. Nothing personal, it’s just the truth.

Answer: Lying in bed is one of my favorite things to do, no matter what time I wake up – even if it’s 7:30 and I have a 7:45 appointment. I like listening to the birds, planning my day, trying to remember what day it is, and pretending to stretch my ankles and legs to buy more guilt-free time under the covers.

I could do all of this sitting up, and I do that when I’m going to be seeing people early in the day. By “people” I mean individuals who haven’t seen me looking like this and gasp when they first see these golf balls under my eyes. My family and friends, of course, have seen it and no longer suck in air and bug their eyes when they see me, for the most part.

If I have an early appointment, I have to get straight out of bed, or at least sit up. I’ve been doing this all my life because I got these bags even during college. I can tell you that the last thing I wanted to do after a late night fraternity dance where I’d spent the evening with my favorite party companions, Jack Daniels and Ezra Brooks, was jump out of bed. I found on those occasions that it was way more practical to just stay in bed all day rather than worry about being seen with bags that look like bubble gum bubbles hanging under each eyeball.

I just went to Google to find out why we humans get bags, and Google says it’s because it makes it easier to carry our groceries. I redefined my search and found out that it’s because there is fat under the eyeball that does not want to be discriminated against. The fat under the belly, in saddlebags, under upper arms, etc. gets to show itself day in and day out. Why does the fat under the eyes have to be hidden? That’s what eyeball fat wants to know. So it chooses to show itself, especially as we get older because it gets more and more pissy about it as the years go by.

Google also said the bags come from too much salt or other random excuses that don’t fit my situation. Then they talked about cures, which all sound unpleasant. One is surgery. Not for me, Miss I-Hate-Needles. Another is putting cold tea bags or cold cucumbers on the eyes – or asking someone to cold cock you. The resultant swelling and bruises will distract you from the bags.

The final cure was rubbing Preparation H on the bags. In case you live in outer Peoria and don’t know what this medication is used for, it’s supposed to reduce the painful itching and swelling of hemorrhoidal tissue.

I just went to Google to find out how to spell that word (I don’t want to type it again) and discovered that men are rubbing Preparation H all over their torsos before they go out to clubs at night because tightening things up, they think, will help them “get lucky.”

Now there’s a blog topic! But to end this one, please tell me if you have this same problem and what you do about it. Not the problem of getting lucky, silly, the problem of bags under your eyes after staying in bed. I wonder if going back to bed in mid-morning has the opposite effect – it might get rid of the bags. I’m going to test that out right now and I’ll get back to you.