‘Is This a Medical Emergency?’ Today Show Throws to Commercial Break After Hoda Kotb Suffers Crisis With Her Eyes

Television anchors are people like you and me, and NBC’s Hoda Kotb is no exception. This week, the award-winning journalist and author experienced an on-camera incident involving a contact lens that went on an apparent spy mission way up in her eyelid, never to be seen again.

During Thursday’s broadcast of Today with Hoda and Jenna, Kotb paused the conversation she was having with co-host Jenna Bush Hager to state: “I think I have a contact stuck in my eye.” She then proceeded to blink repeatedly, describing the rogue lens as “way up here,” referring to her eyelid, then admitted she didn’t take the contact out the night before.

Contact lens wearers know all too well that as great as contacts are as an alternative to glasses, they can also become the bane of your very existence. They are tiny, discrete, flimsy little things that, once situated on your eye, can wreak absolute havoc on every living and dead cell in your body. The most miniscule element of disturbance either on your eyeball or underneath your eyelid can cause the most obnoxious, all-encompassing discomfort you have ever felt, and on top of that, it messes up your vision. Sand? ROCKS. Glitter? ACTUAL SWORDS.

But it’s fine. It’s barely a thing. At least it is to the contact lens-wearing population.

To everyone else, it looks like a medical emergency, which is what it looked like to sweet summer child Jenna Bush Hager, who expressed deep concern over her colleague and basically screamed: “IS THIS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY???? Wait! This is NOT GOOD.”

First of all, let’s appreciate how much Jenna cares, and also that she didn’t realize X was Twitter. I’ve never envied a moment of journalism more than watching someone not know what X was. Second — and this is for those of us who wear contacts — it must be nice to be a normal person who recognizes that eyeball things are gross instead of gross eyeball things being a pedestrian part of life.

Some of us right here at Mediaite have shared our experiences wearing contact lenses like that scene from Jaws. I once had a full strand of hair wrapped around my eyeball, which I originally mistook for an eyelash until I realized it was much longer than that. So I had to dig that out. And then I had to stare at it. A Mediaite editor who declined to be identified for this piece ended up with a piece of jalapeño pepper lodged behind his eyeball, which sounds exactly as scaldingly hellish as you might imagine. (Also: HOW.) But as contact lens wearers, we’re sticking our fingers in our eyeballs all the time. No big deal for us. Hoda probably gets it too.

So, Hoda asked for advice, and both the unnamed editor and I can recommend — in case this also happens to you — gently rubbing the outside of your eyelid using a circular motion to coax the lens downward. If that doesn’t work, then I’d have to suggest getting to the eye doctor to get that thing out. You really don’t want to be that person who ends up with 20 contacts crammed into your eyelid. (If you really want to convince yourself not to do this, here’s a link to some body horror that might do the trick.)

Also, take your lenses out before bed. All. The. Time. No exceptions.