CNPS numbers spotted 1 (884).
Oi wish Oi'd looked after moi teef. (And belated apologies to the inhabitants of East Anglia; apparently Pam Ayres is from Bedfordshire or Oxfordshire or somewhere. It's your fault for all talking in such ridiculous accents. Not like me and my countymen in Somerset).
I was at the dentist at 8.30am to have my fillings done. It was too early to tell for sure if I was any better physically (outside of my teeth I mean), but having a man drill holes in my molars would surely be just the tonic I needed.
I have only had one filling in my adult life (one of my fillings today was a replacement for that one) and I remember it being a surprisingly painless and relatively rapid affair, so I wasn't too nervous about what was going to happen. I was nonchalent if anything.
But the procedure seemed to take an age this time. Apparently my new filling was much deeper than the dentist had anticipated and it had to drill to such an extent that I considered asking if there was going to be anything reminiscent of a tooth left after he'd finished. But the I remembered that I had a drill in my mouth and my gums had been numbed by anaesthetic. So I just let him carry on carving away at my precious, precious tooth. It didn't really hurt as such (though occasionally he did seem to stray close to bits that weren't completely numb and on another occasion he had to cut away a bit of gum, but hadn't waited for a second injection to take hold and that was a little painful), but it is an uncomfortable and unnatural experience. And you're putting a lot of trust in someone you don't know. What if he'd just set up this practice as a kind of joke, or because he got some kind of perverse pleasure out of cutting bits out of people's gnashers, whilst an assistant sucks all the excess liquid and gunk out of their mouth through a tube? At this stage I didn't mind if her was getting off on it as long as he did a good job on the fillings.
I was in there for almost an hour and a half and subjected to all kinds of strange probes and heat guns (the nurse held up a little shield to protect the doctor from it. What the Hell was that about?). I was left wondering if people who think they've been kidnapped and probed by aliens have just in fact been to the dentist and then forgotten about it. Or maybe there are teams of these pervert dentist men who get off on all this touring America in a van and creating unnecessary, but oh so gratifying, work for themselves.
I was slightly shell-shocked by the end and glad it was over. But it was slightly bizarre to shake the hand of the man who'd just done this to me and thank him. A white coat gets you a long way in this world.
I was well enough to do my gig tonight and it went well, though I'm still not really getting into the meat of the tasks in the hour that I have available to me. It will come together and there's some enjoyable stuff (which doubtless I will have to cut). Felt a little weary afterwards. I'm still not entirely right. What I need is a day in a coach with some animal activists. Which is lucky, because that's what I'm about to have.
Warming Up will probably not be appearing for a few days (thoguh I might be able to update it if I am near an internet cafe), butr will try to fill you in on all that's happened on Wednesday.
