THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS EYE JAMMIE

I pride myself on perfect health, stunningly good looks and a sense of humor that brings entire countries together. But primarily, perfect health. So when, about two weeks ago, I began battling what seemed to be a pesky eye itch/irritation, I thought that perhaps some outside force had just influenced my eye. Perhaps a gnat flew into my eye or, at the time, I had just made a fire so maybe it was the smoke. Seems a little whimpy to get a sore eye from a fire, but it could happen. As days turned to weeks, it became increasingly clear that something was going on with my eye. Reluctant to ever do anything about it, I decide to give it the weekend and see if it just "works itself out" which is something I believe all health issues do eventually.

When driving home from a West Texas A&M flogging over Tarleton State, 51-0, I get hit with an attack. My eyes basically begin to shut while I'm doing about 65 MPH up I-27 in thick traffic. I'm not really sure how we made it home. Oh, West Texas A&M hosts Central Washington in the first round of the Division II playoffs next week. WT's number nine in the country. Not too shabby. Only in West Texas is it necessary to clarify in your "Tailgating Guidelines" that ATVs, dirt bikes and firearms are prohibited. I imagine there's many other things that are prohibited (like helicopter stunts, juggling flaming bowling pins), but interestingly enough, these were the only things strictly mentioned.

Once we get home, my lovely wife decides that I'm going to a doctor, but reluctant to do it that night because the Texas Tech Red Raiders were scheduled to bust out a whooping on the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the last place I wanted to be was at the doctor. I won that one.

In the morning, under excrutiating pain at this point, my lovely wife drives me to a "Urgent Care" which, oddly, these places usually fail to provide anything urgently or any act that could be considered as care. When we arrive, my lovely wife, who just successfully battled the same ailment with doses of a steroid and some eyedrops prescribed from her doctor, asserts to everyone that she knows what I need because she had the same symptoms and was successfully treated just weeks earlier. Pretty simple game plan, I believe.

You would've thought we were asking to get prescribed heroin. It's like everyone was looking at us like, "Eh, I don't know. Maybe I can offer a second opinion." My wife would say:

Look, I'm telling you what he needs because I just recently had the same thing happen to me and my opthamologist prescribed Pretnisone and some eyedrops. I took both for three days and, miraculously, I was cured by taking the medication prescribed to me.

"Eh, despite your testimony, ma'am. I'm going to have suggest something else. It's a horse tranquilizer and hourly punches to the groin."

We ended up leaving with a prescription as requested by my lovely wife who now moonlights as a urgent care doctor. She's really good. On the recommendation of the "physician" (and only on the recommendation of the physician because you know my ass would never do so), we went to Wal-Mart to get our prescriptions filled for $4 a piece (for a total of $8). Pretty chancy, I felt. From a guy who vows to never buy anything that's living, once lived or supposed to live from Wal-Mart, here I am now trusting them with my health. We walk in and I mistaken the arcade for the pharmacy.

Of course, they're pretty much one in the same, though right? You give over a small amount of money for a game of chance. I might as well be playing Galaga instead. Well, one day on the steroids and I'm starting to feel better except for, of course, the expected swelling of the shoulders, increased aggressiveness and my testicles just fell off. I was taking batting practice with pecans in the backyard yesterday and, in ten minutes, I made a pecan pie five miles away.

Texas Tech obliterated Oklahoma State proving that we're no fluke and, as Mike and Mike put it this morning, "Never in my years of covering college football have I seen an offense that is so unstoppable." Yeah, they're good. We hang in there at #2 going into Norman, OK to face off against his former team.

Well, I was going to make a prediction on the OU game, but we got a while with a week off. Until then, I'll continue to pay homage to the great Mike Leach who is, unquestionably, the greatest coach in Texas Tech football history. Now, if you know anything about Texas Tech football history, that's not a tall task as in only nine seasons, he's about to become Tech's second winningest coach, but he's never had a losing season, we're 5-3 in bowl games under him (two of which were, without question, the greatest comebacks in bowl game history) and his teams have broken almost every offensive record the game has ever known all in an ever-stout Big 12. Dude's a stud.

Not alot to celebrate because, let's face it, Mondays suck. I'll keep you posted on the side effects of the steroids I'm on. Right now, I'm watching a mouse eating scraps in a dumpster fifteen miles away on a dirt road. Yeah, baby, Greatest American Hero style.