Unlucky For Some

It’s the 21st Century. We throw ourselves around the world in great iron birds. We can communicate with someone on the other side of the globe in an instant by bouncing our voices off the myriad satellites that orbit our planet. We’re beginning to unravel the secrets of DNA. Our understanding of the quantum world is beginning to hasten in a new era of human enlightenment.

And yet we’re totally unable to rid ourselves of the most stupid of suspicions.

All week I have watched people grimace and convulse with the kind of facial tics that, a century ago, would have seen them thrown into a Victorian freak show at the merest mention of Friday 13th.

What? You are going to the dentist on Friday 13th? Are you mad? You’ll end up with a root canal and your tongue harpooned on the dentist drill? Or, worse still, stunned with Novocain while Dr Drillgood manhandles your boobs / moobs and etches his name across your pantie-line in teeth whitener!

You’re never flying on the 13th? Internal flight, be damned! You’ll be blown out of the sky by a shoe bomb or worse still find yourself bumped onto a Ryan Air flight with only Gary Glitter for company!

Are you crazy? You’re planning to tightrope walk across the top of the Clifton Suspension Bridge on Friday 13th wearing nothing but a pink peephole bra and bright red galoshes... etc, etc.

You get the picture.

What’s the big deal? It’s just another Goddamned day and just another Goddamned number. It doesn’t mean a damned thing. Why do people get so knicker-twisted over it? It’s like people enjoy the prospect of disaster or bad luck. Behind all the grimacing and gurning that Friday 13th provokes is a definite sunburst of joy that somebody just might fall off a ladder in front of you and spectacularly impale their gonads on a rollerdex... anything to break the tedium of another boring week at the office.

And I suspect that’s what’s behind it. A little something to break the monotony. The possibility that the bone grinding tedium of life might be temporarily broken up by the pig’s bladder of misadventure. As long as it happens to somebody else of course. Audience participation on the 13th is not to be welcomed.

But the 13th has never been unlucky for me. Never. I’ve never had a bad experience with the number 13. Not once. Not ever. I’m immune to it. Totally. And I put this immunity down to the fact that I was actually born on the 13th (of August).

I mean, how can the 13th ever be unlucky for me if it saw my pewling but beautiful form finally arrive in the world, glistening and wriggling and full of all this splendid potential?

Unlucky for the rest of you maybe...

;-)

Virility And Decrepitude

My visits to the dentist are becoming quite depressing.

While my dentist has become younger (and female), I’ve got older. And stayed male. Though the latter isn’t yet cause for bi-polar disorder.

My previous dentist, the wonderfully named Mr Twiss, retired about 2 years ago. He was an odd man. Physically he resembled John McCririck only without the be-chained spectacles and the penchant for bookie sign language – that would have been most off-putting while he was rummaging around in my mouth – we have a compacted wisdom tooth coming in at 5-1...

Towards the end he’d become rather portly and had trouble bending himself over his opulent belly. This may explain why my appointments with him were so brief and so pleasingly work-free. Of course his imminent retirement might have had a lot to do with the lack of commissioned dental work as well. He was just coasting along, doing as little as possible, trying to avoid topping someone with an overdose of Novocain or whatever it is they use these days. He was just happy to chat and scrape off the odd bit of plaque while I stared up at the impressive ginger topiary that sprouted forth from his nostrils.

My new dentist, Dr Hassan, is the complete opposite. Female, Arabic, nothing at all like the dreaded McCririck and her nose – from what I’ve seen of it (and I’ve seen quite a bit) – is mercifully hair free. As clean as the torpedo tubes on a Russian nuclear sub in fact. Thankfully she’s not launched any salvoes my way while I’ve been reclining beneath her.

Now there’s a line for a bodice ripper if ever I heard one.

The biggest difference though is that Dr Hassan is conscientious to the point of costing me vast sums of money every time I visit her. Mr Twiss would sting me for an average of £15 per visit. Dr Hassan finds enough work to do to cost me £50. Usually it’s a “scrape and polish”. Something that never bothered me much as a child but is now extremely painful due to the sensitive nature of my aged gums.

Yesterday she announced somberly that I’m beginning to lose bone.

I nearly replied that having my jaw clamped open while having my molars slashed with a mini chainsaw was hardly going to get me in the mood... but quickly comprehended that she was referring to my teeth...

Apparently I’m losing bone at the front bottom portion of my jaw. I’m still not entirely sure what this means. I’ve always had a weak chin... does this mean it’s getting weaker?

Anyway, the upshot is I have to be more brutal with my brushing regime. This will supposedly encourage my gums to “firm up” and hold on more tightly to my incisors.

It seems they are in danger of falling out next time I snap them down onto a Yorkie.

This apparently is just a normal sign of old age and general wear and tear. Nothing much to worry about.

But I do worry.

I miss Mr Twiss. For all Dr Hassan’s nose is far more pleasant to look up, Mr Twiss always made me feel young and robust.

Dr Hassan makes me feel like I’m crumbling away beneath her impressively blue aproned breasts.

It’s not a nice feeling. Especially when I’m being charged £50 for it.

The Daily Grind

It’s all money money money at the moment.

Or rather I’ve got no money money money.

I’ve just returned from a trip to the friendly neighbourhood dentist – the gloriously toothy Dr Hassan – who has given my molars and canines the once over with her hooked implements of stainless steel. The diagnosis is not good. They’re clean – yes – but I’m apparently grinding my teeth while I sleep with the result that they’re beginning to resemble Neolithic grindstones.

The solution is a night guard. It’s like a gum shield but far more expensive.

So what is causing me to grind my teeth, Dr Hassan asks me pleasantly.

Oh the usual I reply: money worries – mortgage, fuel prices, child care costs – all money that I haven’t got.

I know the feeling, she replies with a fragrant sigh, but the night guard should prevent your teeth from wearing away to nothing. In the meantime you must do what you can to cut down on the amount of stress that you are under (I nod obediently). By the way the night guard will probably cost about £200...

Grind grind gnash gnash... cue the sound of enamel splintering in my mouth.

Ooh, don’t worry I can fix that says Dr Hassan... but it’ll cost you...

*Sigh*

And as for all my efforts to alleviate my money worries by getting an additional job... out of all the vacancies I’ve applied for only one has actually bothered to ring me back and dangle the promise of an imminent interview before me...

But that was over a week ago and I’ve heard absolutely nothing since; the mooted day for the possible interview has now long since lapsed and I’ve basically given up ever hearing from them again.

I can’t believe how hard it’s proving to pick up a simple part-time job. We’re talking menial labour here for God’s sake. It shouldn’t be this difficult! Should it?

I’ve come the conclusion that I am just eminently unemployable. Which is worrying. I’m “unemployable” but am employed full time by the local council.

Hmm.

I’m trying not to read too much into that...

Gnashers

I’m nursing a sore mouth this morning.

A trip to the dentist yesterday resulted in my pearly-yellows undergoing the orthodontic rigours of the “scrape and polish”. Geez. It sounds like some sort of underworld slang for the kind of service offered by a very down-at-heel (i.e. no heels at all) prostitute who operates from behind the back of a burger van on a Saturday night.

Urgh. Hold the mayo.

Sorry, that was spectacularly uncalled for but pain has a rather souring effect on my funny bone. And no, that was not a euphemism...

Dr Hassan, my dentist, is very thorough and God bless her, she scraped, hacked and polished at my choppers until my gums bled. Literally. And four hours later they were still bleeding.

In fact I spent much of yesterday with the taste of blood constantly in my mouth. It was like permanently having a McDonald’s hamburger rolling and slopping over my molars. Or something reconstituted and burger shaped bought from a burger van that operates on a Saturday night.

Not pleasant.

The worst thing about the “scrape and polish”, as any “scrape and polish” customer will tell you, is not so much the pain (the level of which was really quite surprising – either that or I’m just a complete wuss) but the noise. Everybody winces at the sound of chalk being scraped down a blackboard... but imagine that very same noise being situated right inside your mouth, inside your very head, with the added discomfort of pressure being applied with pin-prick precision along various points of your aching jaws.

My feet were literally curling inside my boots while Dr Hassan carried out her work.

Most discomforting of all was the welding mask that Dr Hassan wore while she set about sand-blasting my teeth to Hollywood-esque perfection. I half expected to find a cow-bar welded to my lower lip when I finally got out of the chair.

Expect to see me racing over rugged terrain and through mountainous foothills the next time a Freelander advert hits your TV screen. I’ll be the one in the background bouncing Aberdeen Angus off my chin and crashing unscathed through wooden farm fences...