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I make mistakes – lots of them – because I forget to stop and think. I’ve been blessed with unique stories (like the time my cornea got scratched by sea turtle poop) to entertain my friends. I could have saved myself thousands of dollars on first aid products, hundreds of hours at doctor’s offices, and an unthinkable amount of mental and emotional pain had I just stopped to think, so I’ve compiled a few of my lessons from last week to help others avoid some of the anguish I stupidly inflicted upon myself.

• Lesson: If you can’t handle natural light, avoid tanning bulbs.

  You know that feeling when you walk out of the eye doctor’s wearing goggles that look like they came out of Kanye West’s trashcan and accidentally look down, catch a glimpse of sunlight, and feel as if someone jammed a pencil in your eye? If so, I’m assuming you’ve had your pupils dilated. Most people wear their glasses and try not to open their eyes while someone else drives them home. Well, I’m not like most people. Last week, I was planning on getting a new tattoo and knew that I’d have to avoid sunlight for two weeks, which wouldn’t be an issue if I wasn’t going on a cruise this month. I’m also tired of trying to convince people that someone as pasty as me is Caribbean-blooded, so I squinted my way towards the tanning salon. Even though I couldn’t open my eyes without sunglasses, I figured that using the sticky eye protectors under my regular tanning goggles would be enough. It wasn’t. For two days, I had burning eyes that watered whenever I looked at something white, which was especially hard considering that I work in an office where I stare at a computer screen all day. From my extensive experience with skin burns, I’m equating this to a third degree burn – on my eyeball.

• Lesson: Check the address before heading to a new place.

  I recently began doing promotions for an up-and-coming rapper in my area and needed to meet with him to work on some press. My schedule was making it impossible for us to find a time that worked, so I agreed to just drive to his place for dinner. He told me that he lived near Smithfield, which is a BBQ joint about 5 minutes from my house, which I didn’t know was named after an actual Smithfield, a tiny town, similar to – but sketchier than – the one in True Blood. I got in my car ready for a nice, fatty dinner to undo my work at the gym, when I plugged the address into my GPS and realized that I had agreed to drive an hour into the middle of nowhere. Making matters worse, the nothingness in the area killed my signal, and I drove in circles for an hour before arriving at a ghetto. Not just any ghetto. This was the stinky part of a redneck cesspool. Once again, I found myself lost in an area I had no business knowing about, with no cell phone service should I need to call the cops. I should’ve known that a rapper would live in a ghetto. I did get lucky, though; my windows weren’t broken and my rims weren’t stolen that night (because someone had already stolen them while my car was parked outside my office building), but I could have been assaulted by a redneck holding a pitchfork driving his tractor after chugging a case of PBR.

Next: Make sure you don’t flash yourself unexpectedly»

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