ATT00076 Cat joke cartoon (Photo credit: DrJohnBullas)
“Open wider,” requested the dentist, as he began his examination of the patient.
“Good grief!” he said, startled. “You’ve got the biggest cavity I’ve ever seen – the biggest cavity I’ve ever seen…”
“OK Doc!” replied the patient. “I’m scared enough without you saying something like that twice.”
“I didn’t!” said the dentist. “That was the echo.”
*
I love my dentist. The whole surgery. I love them all.
The office opened at 08:45. At 08:45:01 the phone was answered and an appointment made for 09:10.
By 09:35 my front tooth was back in place. Look:
The dentist was quite excited to have a chance to use her new adhesive, called Etch. It stuck that sucker right back on and it feels more secure now than the rest of the teeth in my mouth.
I was fortunate that the tooth sheared off in one piece at an angle. And that it stuck in the corn cob rather than down my gullet.
I was pleased that there was a work experience student there from Spud’s school, because it gave me a chance to boast that Spud had never needed any treatment at all in his seventeen years; not once.
I was chuffed when the dentist told the student how lovely and polite and friendly Spud was, and a pleasure not to treat.
I smiled all the way home.
All rather different from last night, when I was feeling very sorry for myself and my ugly, must never be seen in public again mouth. Though I did get the giggles during one of my regular prayers: O Lord, help me to keep my mouth shut and my lips sealed…
And now I’m off to a poetry reading.
This is a reblog of a post from October 2010.
mouth (Photo credit: Darwin Bell)
We haven’t talked about my manky teeth for a while. I have the worst teeth in the world. When Americans whisper behind their hands about British mouths, it’s me they’re thinking of.
I had root canal treatment on my front tooth, twenty-odd years ago. Being dead, it got greyer and greyer until I begged my dentist to help me. He suggested veneers – in the plural, because one’s front gnashers should match.
I told my friend Flo about it and she thought it was a great idea until she spoke to her own dentist. Next time I saw her, I asked her if she was going to have her own teeth done but she fobbed me off. She didn’t want to upset newly veneered me, or make me feel uncomfortable. I knew she was fobbing me off by the way she blushed and ran to the other side of the playground every time teeth were mentioned.
I never did learn what horror story her dentist told her about veneers, but I can take a good guess. First of all, installing them hurts. My teeth were sanded down to nothing and every time I breathed (which I do a lot of; there’s no getting round it) it felt like a gale force wind was prodding my pearly yellows with a skewer. Then the cement used to stick the veneers on was so adhesive, it dried before my dentist had time to remove the excess. My mouth spent weeks looking as if it had been grouted to match my bathroom.
Worst of all, the cement only seems to work on the gaps between the teeth: my veneers have fallen off several times and always have to be glued back on. I was on my way out one night when it happened again. ‘I don’t know why it does that,’ I said to the Hub as I finished my chewy lollipop.
Smile (Photo credit: Tim Zim)
I don’t go out with a broken mouth. It’s one of my rules. My dentist agreed to fix it next morning. She keeps a spare appointment just for me: I am forever losing crowns, fillings, veneers and bits of old tooth that I don’t use anymore.
I hope my children read this as a cautionary tale: brush your teeth twice a day for three minutes. If you don’t, I’m warning you: I’m going to smile.
Image via Wikipedia
More searches that found me:
This One I Know But It Reads Funny
My Kinda Guy
So How, Exactly, Did You End Up Here?
People Want The Weirdest Poems
That Nasty John
Animal Crackers
A Horror Story
What’s With The Teeth Obsession?
What Can Only Be Described As A Middle Class Search
Some Days, That’s Just How It Feels
And Yet Another Scary One; Why Do They End Up Here?
Not An Invitation From The Writer Of This Blog
Is There Any Other Kind?
Image via Wikipedia
I’m writing this in Word because the internet keeps going down. You’ll be reading it live online, of course; lucky you. What’s so great about you that you get t’internet and I don’t? Life just ain’t fair sometimes.
You’ll see by my first paragraph that I get a little grumpy if I don’t get online the minute I want to. It’s like a drug. Is it possible to mainline online? Somebody better fix something sometime soon or someone’s gonna be bashing computers against someone’s head in a frenzy of withdrawal symptoms.
*
Toby seems to be on the mend! Hooray! My posts will stop sounding like eulogies.
He ate a little chicken last night; some more this morning; some more after that; some more…you get the idea. He’s taking his tablets, drinking tea, and looking a mite perkier. My bad mood has lifted like someone took their foot off the internet wire and fixed the blockage (it must be lumpy ether; what else can it be?).
*
Tory Boy: the incredible vanishing son. Says he needs your help then leaves you hanging, worried sick that something has happened to him because why else would he say ‘Look at this for me’ and then not send the thing to be lookited, not answer emails, nor his phone? It was only once I sent a text threatening to visit him that he let me know he wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, beaten to within an inch of his life with no id because it had been stolen by the beaters and there was therefore no way for the hospital staff to contact his frantic mother. I only worried because he said ‘Look at this for me’ and then nothing. If he had said ‘…,’ I’d have known not to worry because I never do when he ignores me for weeks at a time, never calls, texts or emails. It’s a mother’s lot to be irrelevant; I get that. But don’t let me think I’m relevant and then ignore me – you might as well put a gun to my head and tell me to choose between Maltesers or the internet: the resulting spin would make a tornado look like a gentle blow on a puppy’s ear.
*
So my tooth fell out again. Not my tooth, actually my front left veneer. It’s now the third or fourth time. The dentist, who keeps a spare appointment just for my teeth emergencies, tried another tack. She sand-blasted the back of the veneer, roughed up the front of the tooth, and cemented them together. I wasn’t sure if I was at a dentist’s or a builders’ convention.
After two hours of starvation I tested it on a packet of Chewits and it’s still there. I may have manky teeth but I’ve got good NHS.
*
Coming Soon To A Blog Near You: The Greatest Quilt Ever Made!
(Once the Hub uploads the photos)
I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph is from 2003. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.
The Laughing Housewife 
I have the funniest readers in the blogosphere (not necessarily ha ha…)