Purple eyes

This week, I took a plunge and tried out a darker shade of eyeshadow. Please note: I am a creature of habit, and I wear purple eye shadow every. single. day. This was still purple, just a darker purple.

You would have that I was wearing gold Lycra pants from the reactions I got. A sampling:

"Purple eyes, purple eyes, purple eyes." (Ad nauseum.) -- From one half of what I affectionately call my wolf twins, autistic four-year-olds with extremely limited vocabularies. (They got this nickname because my principal famously described them as "seeming as if they were raised by wolves.")

"Ms. Heathen!!! What did you do?! You painted your eyes purple!" -- My favorite first grader, who I am exceedingly fond of but who drives me nuts with her attempts to steer the conversation away from whatever she is supposed to be doing and toward some aspect of my personal life.

"Look at that! That's called makeup." -- A four-year-old who started attending my school last week. I have seen him all of three times.

The next day I went back to my normal shade. I'll think long and hard before I do anything so drastic again. But at least I can't complain that no one ever pays attention to how I look.