I am suffering from a bad case of pink eye, a bacterial infection in which kindly old Mother Nature replaces your eyeballs with maraschino cherries which have been rolled in poison ivy, and super-glues your eyelids shut while you sleep, if you sleep.

“I think I’ve got something in my left eye,” I told Honey.

She looked closely at my face. “You’ve got pink eye,” she said. She should know. She’s the one who gave it to me. “You should go to the doctor right away to get started on antibiotics.”

Being a manly man, I decided to tough out this li’l ole childhood disease. I probably had it when I was a boy and have some immunity.

That was Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon I was driving one-eyed to urgent care, where I told the medics, “Mommy said I have pink eye. It hurts and itches. Make it go away.”

Honey came down with pink eye in her right eye last weekend and had to wait til Monday to see her doc and get a script for antibiotic pills.

“I don’t think I ever had pink eye,” she told me. “This is really awful!” Honey caught it from our daughter Shark, who as a second-grade teacher catches whatever contagions her students bring to school. Poor Shark also had covid, flu, strep throat, bronchitis and ileus, all at one time, on top of her autoimmune disease, landing her in the ER. I can write jokingly about my pink eye, but it’s nothing compared to what she is fighting through.

Back to my pathetic little skirmish with pink eye.

The very helpful urgent care folks called in a script for antibiotic eyedrops, which seemed at first to be working, then weren’t, as the infection spread to my right eye. Life devolved into an endless time of sitting in my recliner and listening to the TV with goopy, aching eyes closed, getting up now and then to wash them open.

Honey, who has recovered from her pink eye, had applied a baking soda poultice to her closed eye to ease the itching. Someone told Shark that a cold, used chamomile teabag could give relief. I tried that, but mostly I’ve been draping a cool, wet washcloth over my eyes.

“I’ve been trying to figure out why you’re not getting better,” Honey said this morning. “Are you rinsing out your eyes?”

The answer was yes. With aging, many people need to apply moisturizers to their skin. I’m just the opposite. My face gets oily if I don’t rinse and towel it frequently. Since my brain surgery three years ago (pity, pity), I’ve also had dry eye, and often rinse my eyes when they are affected.

“I think you’re washing out the eyedrops,” advised my clever wife. “Try just dabbing your eyes.”

Yesterday I received a funny birthday card from Cousin Brucie. On the cover was a photo of a baby with a full beard. The message inside was, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

I texted Brucie, “You’re right. I’m still getting childhood diseases.”

At least, that’s what I think I replied. With the condition of my eyes and the diabolical word substitutions of iphone autocorrect, it’s hard to tell what gobbledygook I sent.

So here I sit at my computer, with the screen adjusted to LARGE PRINT size, writing this column and wondering if I will have to burn my recliner along with the towels, sheets, blankets, pajamas and everything else I’ve touched in the past four days.

I’ll let Honey decide. Right now I need to update my last will and testament.

(Fred Miller’s third book of stories, “A Dead Carp on Shadyside Ave.” is $10 (cheap!) and available locally at Calcutta Giant Eagle, Pottery City Antique Mall, Museum of Ceramics, Frank’s Pastries, Davis Bros. pharmacies, and the Old Ft. Steuben gift shop.)