IT was the big, black, bug-like thing that finally convinced me to go and see the optician.

I had just sprayed myself in the face with a gentleman's fragrance called Cool Water by Davidoff — a pleasing parfum with a tangy top note — which smells very nice but makes your eyes sting.

I had sprayed myself in the eye because I couldn't see the little hole in the nozzle of the very masculine-looking atomiser.

It was while vigorously rubbing my watering eye that I noticed the black thing by my foot.

It was about one inch long, very black and very still.

I didn't immediately stamp on it partly because I don't like killing God's creatures but mainly because I had bare feet and the thought of crunching some possibly poisonous, and certainly crunchy, bug with a naked foot seemed too horrible to contemplate.

So, stifling a scream which I knew would be high-pitched and girlish, I made my way to the bathroom, tipped out the toothbrushes from the toothbrush glass, returned to the bedroom, grabbed the envelope I use as a bookmark and set to work.

I placed the upturned glass over the thing from the dark and slowly slid the envelope under the glass.

As I did so great globs of old but still viscous toothpaste slowly slid down the inside of the glass.

This greatly limited by view of what was going on inside the glass but the envelope came out the other side so I was convinced the said thing was trapped within.

I carefully carried glass, with enveloped pressed close, to the backdoor, and in one smooth movement pulled away the envelope and shook out the glass.

I didn't actually see anything shoot out, except a little white toothpaste gloop, but I was confident the intruder was now safely in the garden, surprised by the change of surroundings but grateful to the kind human and probably happily feasting on some lesser, harmless species.

I returned to the bedroom with a smug glow, having overcome my natural fear of the unknown to save a life.

And there on the carpet, where I had first seen it, was the big, black, bug-like thing.

I stared at it with the stare of the incredulous until my wife arrived on the scene and declared confidently: "It's mascara."

I am not entirely sure what mascara is, which is why I continued to look bewildered.

My wife explained that my daughter, making full use of the full size mirror that is the door to my wardrobe, often applied her make-up there and a wodge of this so-called mascara must have fallen on to the carpet, leaving the large bug-like deposit.

I determined to take this up with my daughter but she quickly turned the tables on me pointing out that anyone with even the smallest brain would have spotted the difference between a small stain on a carpet and a creepy crawly.

Warming to this theme she went on to question my eyesight, pointing out I shut my nose in the fridge, and suggesting the reason why I continually walked into doors, furniture and the dog was that the years had caught up with me.

This cannot be true because when I look in the mirror I see an unchanged man, a man untouched by the passing of time, a man with a boyish grin, without wrinkle, blemish or trace of grey hair.

That's what I see — and that's why my wife made an appointment for me at the opticians.