Shoes
Tuesdays are usually good days. I have my riding lesson on Tuesdays.* Today I had to go to the dentist.**
It took three stabs to render me sufficiently numb, which means that now it’s worn off again my jaw feels like it was broken like a potato chip/crisp and then stapled together, supposing you can use staples on a potato chip/crisp, and after only the first jab I found the top of my head lifting off and the rest of me juddering like a sapling in a tornado.*** I feel very odd, I said, hanging on to the chair to keep from falling out of it, I feel as if I’m having a . . . like an adrenaline attack.
Oh yes, said the dentist blandly. That happens sometimes.
!!!!!??!???!??!?!????????!!!!!!!!?
There’s adrenaline in the anaesthetic, he went on, to constrict the blood vessels, so the anaesthetic lasts longer. Occasionally a little of it leaks directly into a blood vessel during the injection, and then this may happen.
So then we had to wait for it to wear off before he could get on with the show.
I was in there for the relatively nontraumatic-in-terms-of-physical-pain matter of having the three crowns put on the three teeth he disassembled last time†. So he banged and hammered and pulled stuff off and put stuff on for a while and then he said . . .
These crowns just aren’t good enough. I’m going to send them back to the lab.
SO WE HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! AND IT’S WORSE THAN THAT, BECAUSE HE’S GOING TO REDO THE MOULDS AND BLAH AND WHATEVER TOO! So rather than coming out today having something finished, I’ve just regressed two appointments. In a game of Snakes and Ladders I’ve hit a snake. And they can’t fit me in till the end of September. The second appointment is the beginning of October. And I was already demoralised†† by his having run through the options for the next piece of major reconstruction (similar in scope and expense to restoring Windsor Castle after the fire) while we were waiting for the adrenaline to wear off.
So I rushed wailing out onto the street and . . . bought shoes. Of course. Anyone would. It’s not quite that bad. No, it’s worse. But, I mean, buying shoes. Peter came into town with me, and we were going to meet back at the car after my appointment, long enough for me to run a quick errand. The errand in question was to go to the Surprisingly Comfortable without Being Small-Child-Scaringly Ugly Shoes Shop, and look for sandals, which should be on sale by now. This is a perfectly legitimate errand. The problem is that they were having a major end of season Everything Must Go sale and about 90% of it was in my size.††† Well, at least I did get the sandals. I was also twenty minutes late back to the car. I said, I prostrate myself grovellingly at your feet. Peter said, No, no, I knew this would happen, I brought something to read.
We could now take bets that I’ll finally get around to the organised-and-thoughtful tomorrow.
^^ Do you remember the pigeon?
** But I barely got my book out of my knapsack before he came bounding down the stairs for me. This was after the receptionist said with awful emphasis, He’ll only be two or three minutes!
*** Or a chucklehead after her third mug of tea. Well, I don’t always count very well. My mind is on other things.
† And kept me waiting forty minutes and then charged me £1,000,000. The forty minutes is true. The £1,000,000 is slightly exaggerated, but it’s all relative. Relative to my bank account, it was £1,000,000.
†† Well that’s a non sequitur. I’m demoralised automatically, walking across his threshold.
††† This happens to me kind of a lot. The rest of me is small enough that there are often really interesting things on the sale rack in my size^, and my feet are enormous, so there are quite often shoes in my size too. Oh, sob, poooor me, such torture. Trying not to buy everything! Ak! Agony! Affliction!
^ See: Best Hot Frock
Best Hot Frock
. . . and woman looking dubiously at the camera because her husband is holding it. We have to use this one, where my dubiety is in the process of causing my face stress fractures, because the one where I’m smiling at the bloke over Peter’s shoulder who is making ‘been there done that’ faces at me has the other blokes you can see in the background of this one doing a strange spastic salsa out of my right arm. Sigh. But I was determined to show you my frock.* Best for hot weather frock, you know. Glyndebourne is the place where you wear your best frock and feel like a scullery maid on her half day, but this is a Nicole Farhi. And except for the fact that I’m posting it here, no one would have to know that I bought it for £25 on the sale rack at Liberty’s. I love Liberty’s. It’s as good as a play. But I don’t expect to buy anything there.
*Despite bad case of farmer’s tan. And I just was not going to wear stockings in this weather. I. Was. Not.