The thing about glitter is that it really does get into the darndest places. My parents may or may not have had this in mind when they watched my ten-year-old self tear open a massive box of whimsical art supplies: paper drawing pads, colorful logs of clay, tissue paper squares, and a shimmering set of rainbow confetti glitter glue. I was delighted and tried to open everything at once, but Mom restrained me, pointing out that I shouldn't add to the mess of scattered wrapping paper shavings on the carpet. Besides, my brother still needed to open his gifts. With that, morning passed in a mixture of post-holiday stupor and contentment, and I somehow forgot all about the array of shiny bottles. It would have been best if the story had ended here, but unfortunately no. Six months later, I was helping Mom and Dad declutter the basement shelves—then something glimmery captured my attention. It was my fabulous confetti glue! The red, orange, green, blue, gold, and silver containers captivated me all over again. Naturally, I did what any child would: grabbed the nearest color and tried to squeeze it onto a battered sheet of construction paper. I shook and smacked the bottle, but nothing happened. So my dumb self unscrewed the top and squinted inside. At the same moment, I reflexively clenched my hand. That tic sent a geyser of the liquid glue into my right eye. It was unpleasantly cold, wet, and viscous, so I screamed. Mom frantically called the doctor while running tap water from the kitchen faucet over my face. He referred her to a local ophthalmologist, who dribbled a yellow numbing solution into the eye before picking star-shaped confetti bits out from under my lower eyelid with a scary pair of tweezers. I screamed some more. When we arrived home from that traumatic experience, I looked in the mirror and noticed glitter all over my face, shirt, and in my hair and mouth. There were sparkles in places I didn't know I had, even after I showered. Guess what? It was not fun. That, my friends, is how I learned, in the most literal way possible, that ‘all that glitters is not gold'.