Category Archives: Laughter

My Gynecologist Appointment With Doogie Howser

| | Posted in Aging, Doctor, health, Humor, laugh, Laughter, Older, wellness, Wife, women | Tagged , , , , ,

I went to the gynecologist recently for my yearly checkup. I’m usually a procrastinator in general, but making this appointment is rarely high on my list of priorities. I know that going to the gynecologist is for preventative maintenance, just like making sure you change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles but don’t most people try to make it to 5,000 miles before changing the oil?

Everyone knows it needs to be done, but nobody I know ever wakes up and goes “Yayyyyy! It’s gynecologist appointment day!”

I get to the doctor’s office and sign in, then head over to the waiting room that is currently hosting several pregnant women and now me. I feel like the new kid in school that everyone stares at because she’s different.

After 40 minutes or so (who’s counting?) the nurse calls me back.

We go through the typical steps. She checks my blood pressure. Normal. Pulse? Normal. Then I get on the scales. I drop my purse, jacket, and take off my shoes. I even remove my Pandora bracelet in fear that it will add another few ounces. I let out all the air in my lungs and lightly step on the scales, like it will take a pound or two off the final result.

“Oh, you’ve gained a few pounds since you were here last year.”

Seriously? Does she not realize that I don’t know my pants are tighter this year than last? Do I need the nurse at my gynecologist’s office bringing that to my attention? This appointment is getting off to a bad start.

I’m already in a bad mood lady just because I have to be here. Don’t push it.

I am led into a little room with all kinds of posters on the walls with pictures of vaginas, birth control, babies in the womb, etc. Wow. This is not helping.

The nurse lays out a gown and sheet and I’m told I’m supposed to strip down to my birthday suit and put on the gown.

After a while, my doctor and his nurse come into the room. He’s new to the practice so I have never met him before. He looks like he just graduated from middle school. And he’s so cheerful that it makes me want to slap him. I’m thinking, “Please don’t be this happy while you are looking up my vajayjay because it will make this experience even more uncomfortable.”

He asks me tons of questions.

How many children have I had? Am I married? What do I do for a living?

Sounds like I’m being picked up at a bar. I squeeze my eyes shut. Please stop the small talk and get this show on the road.

He checks my tiny boobies out to make sure there aren’t any lumps in there. My chest is flatter than the table I’m lying on, and all the while he asks me if I have dogs, isn’t the weather nice today, and whether or not I watch football.

What?

I lay back and he does the “other” part of the exam. My knees are like magnets. They instinctively keep closing back together. It is clear that I am not enjoying this experience.

Then he does an ultrasound to see what my baby makers look like. They are 47 years old so they are probably starting to look like shriveled up raisins, but he says that everything looks good.

“Just please don’t see a heartbeat in there”, I say.

“Oh, nothing to worry about. You’re getting up there in age so unless you are trying to get pregnant, you probably won’t.”

W.T.H???

The humiliating part of the exam is over. I can only compare a gynecologist exam to prostate exam. In theory of course, since I don’t have a prostate. You just had someone poking around in your no-no spots and he hasn’t even bought you dinner.

I sit up on the exam table and he asks me more questions.

“How old are you?’

“Just turned 47.”

“Ahh. Are you experiencing hot flashes? Weight gain? Mood swings?”

“Yes. Oh my God, am I dying? What do I have?”

“Oh it’s nothing. You’re probably just experiencing early menopause.”

Early menopause? Seriously? I’m 47! Not 107! Didn’t my grandmother just go through menopause? She’s 96. I’m too young to be going through menopause. Here I was worried he was going to tell me I’m pregnant, and instead he tells me my girly parts are antiquated.

I sit there, stunned, as he goes over other symptoms. These are just some of the fun features of menopause: Hair loss, loss of libido, brittle nails, anxiety, paranoia.

“Oh great”, I think. I’m going to turn into a bitchy, bald, edgy, sweaty, freaked out sex-hater. Sounds like my husband is just going to LOVE the new me.

He asks if I have any more questions. I mumble “no” as I’m still trying to process the fact that he not only insinuated that I’m getting old, but he also just had his hand up my hoo-ha. I sort of feel used.
I could use some chocolate.

And as I’m leaving, Doogie Howser hands me a slip of paper, smiles at me and tells me to have a nice day.

I leave the office and go sit in my car. I look down at the piece of paper.

That little bastard. It’s a prescription for my annual mammogram.

More Stuffed Than The Thanksgiving Turkey

| | Posted in Aging, Christmas, Cooking, exercise, health, Humor, Husband, laugh, Laughter, Older, Thanksgiving, Uncategorized, wellness, women | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Ahh the holidays. I love them for so many reasons but especially for the food. I love to eat, and holiday food is the best. Turkey and dressing, mac and cheese, desserts, and breakfasts with bacon and eggs.

Me looking at the scale after Christmas.

Me looking at the scale after Christmas.

From this past Thanksgiving through Christmas I ate like I was on death row and every meal was going to be my last.

Which is also why my pants began cutting off my circulation and my Spanx went on strike by the time New Year’s Day rolled around.

I had taken a hiatus from my dread mill, partly because of surgery to my leg last March but mostly because I was just about as productive as a slug.

So right after Christmas, when I put on a pair of jeans from my closet only to realize they were my husbands jeans – AND THEY FIT – did I decide I’d better actually honor my New Years resolution and start working out again as well as eating healthier.

Low-fat, low-carb…I cut down on bacon and other fatty foods. I’ve started eating so many nuts for snacks that I will probably grow a tail and climb a tree soon.

My new friends K and L talked me into going to the gym to do a “step” class. I don’t know if you have ever done a step class before, but it’s where an instructor has you stepping on and off a 6″ high platform while blaring music is pumped out of the speakers overhead and girls with stick-figure bodies in tight little workout clothes surround you.

I had taken step before a few years ago but I was not prepared for this one. Maybe I’m just getting old, but the moves were so fast that I’m pretty sure that I looked like I was doing “the Elaine” dance from Seinfeld while K and L were gracefully going through the movements with ease.

Me at step class

Me at step class

While they were going left I was going right. When they were going up I was going down. I was the complete opposite of what they did.

And with each break, I’d guzzle some water. Half-way through the class I thought my bladder was going to burst. I felt like a puppy near some new carpet.

After class, we decided to continue the workout with crunches. K showed me how to do sit-ups on a machine, and even though I had been doing crunches at home, it was clear that the ones I had been doing at home were the same intensity that a preschooler could handle.

The next morning, I had to literally roll out of bed because my muscles felt like I had been punched in the stomach. But, I went back two days later and my legs didn’t feel like they were full of lead anymore. And I actually enjoyed the class.

And I’m determined to honor my New Year’s resolution until I can no longer wear the same size jeans as my husband, and am back in my old clothes. And if that’s not enough incentive, then I don’t know what is.

Smile For The Camera!

| | Posted in Christmas, Family, florida, Humor, laugh, Laughter, Technology, vacation | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

I absolutely LOVE taking pictures. Photographs of people, where ever I am at the moment, my dog, whatever. It doesn’t matter. I have tons of photo albums in my bookcase – years’ worth of memories, all bound into multi-colored books. I’m probably one of the only people left in the world who still prints out pictures and puts them in albums.

Before every cell phone had a camera, I used to take mine with me everywhere. Since I’m naturally blonde, I’d take photos to help me remember certain occasions.

Company trip or Girls Night Out? Whether they liked it or not, I was there taking photos. Many times this really came in handy if alcohol had been involved. Who was the guy Jill was dancing with? What happened to Nicki’s shoes? Why is Carl wearing a cape? Hmmmm. Well, let me just reference my handy-dandy digital photos.

Company having a party? Check. I was there, camera in hand, ready to document. (One of my coworkers nicknamed me the company “Documentarian.” I thought it she was kidding until I Googled it and realized that it’s a real word – someone who documents things.) Okay. That was me.

This came in handy each year when the company would take all of the employees to Florida. As usual, I packed my camera. And the crazy and fantastic group of people that I worked with always provided me with opportunities for great pictures.

I have to include a bad one of myself. It's only fair.

I have to include a bad one of myself. It’s only fair.

It’s funny how people act like they don’t like getting their picture taken, but as soon as I would take a photo, people would want to see it.

“Oh, that’s terrible of me! Take another one!!!”

Now, that always made me laugh. If you didn’t like me taking a picture in the first place, then why do you want me to take another one?

It’s because PEOPLE LIKE PICTURES. They’re memories you can see.

V on a stuffed horse.

V on a stuffed horse.

My friend, E.Y.* says I have a knack for getting people to do things that they normally wouldn’t do, and then I take a picture of it.

“Hey E! Go stand by that fountain and it will look like you’re peeing!”

“Okay!!!”

Click-click-click.

“Hey E! Wrap yourself up in this beach towel and you’ll look like a baby!”

“Okay!!!”

Click-click-click.

Flying back from the Fla trip, the airline said babies could board first, so here E is acting like a baby.

Flying back from the Fla trip, the airline said babies could board first, so here E is acting like a baby.

What’s REALLY funny is that E doesn’t drink so these pictures were taken when he was perfectly sober.

E said that I’m the friend that will take really crappy pictures of you all year long and then give them to you on a CD as a Christmas present.

Yep. That’s how I roll. And now that I have a camera on my phone, those great pictures for next year’s Christmas CD are just a quick click away.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

*E’s name and people’s faces have been hidden to protect my life for including these stories in this blog post.

Bra size? C - for cakes.

Bra size? C – for cakes.

It's a bird...it's a plane! It's a man on a piano!

It’s a bird…it’s a plane! It’s a man on a piano!

Camping Chaos

| | Posted in Family, Humor, Husband, laugh, Laughter, Marriage, Uncategorized, vacation | Tagged , , , , , , ,

This past weekend, Dale and I went camping at our favorite place in the North Georgia Mountains.

We wanted to go a few times over the summer, but with all of the rain that we had, we cancelled our plans each time.

Then, the Weather Channel finally predicted a dry weekend, so we planned and prepared to go.

It seems that each time I have ever been camping, something completely funny has happened.

The first funny memory I have is when I went camping with my parents and Aunt and cousins when I was a little girl. We were all in bed sleeping, when we heard a loud racket. My father looked out the window of the camper and saw raccoons feeding on the cake that we had accidentally left out on the picnic table. From then on, it became known throughout our family as the “coon cake” story.

When I was in college, my sister and I went camping with her fiancé and his friend. We knew they were going to play tricks on us – plastic spiders, plastic snakes, etc. So we decided to “one up” them. Years before, our parents had gotten an album of “The Mating Call of the Wolves” as a gag gift. This was, of course, back when we had cassette tapes. We decided to fast forward a blank tape three-quarters of the way through, and then we recorded the wolves howling.

When we crawled in the tent that night, I pushed “play” on the tape player and we got in our sleeping bags to go to sleep. Thirty minutes later, the first “wolf” started howling.

We all sat up. “What the heck was that?” my sister asked. I had to stifle my giggle by burying my face in my pillow so as not to spoil the trick.

“Sounds like wild dogs.” The guys started looking out the zippered windows of the tent. (We had made the guys sleep on the outside edge of the tent because we figured if something attacked the tent, it would get them first.)

“Do you,” I gasped, “think they,” I gasped again, “can get,” gasp, “in the tent???” My sister and I were in tears because we were laughing so hard, but they guys totally missed it. They thought we were crying because we were scared.

“Sounds like they are on the other side of the creek,“ they said. “Maybe we can make a run for the car,” not understanding that the whining and barking was coming from RIGHT INSIDE THE TENT.

After ten more minutes of the guys trying to figure out how to get us to safety, they caught on. Their response? No escorted middle-of–the-night trips to the bathroom. Cathy and I were on our own.

Fast forward to 2008. I took my son, Matthew and several of his hockey buddies camping – two of whom had never been camping before. Besides the typical gross boy stories, my favorite part of the weekend was when they climbed in the creek below the hiking trail. Matthew had gotten an electronic device that played sounds of wild animals, and they would play barks and growls of fox and bears as people would walk above them on the hiking trail. I sat by the campfire watching and laughing hysterically as people would frantically look around trying to see if an animal was nearby.

Then, that leads me to this weekend’s camping trip with my sweet husband. It was our anniversary, so we looked forward to sitting around the fire sipping on wine, and just enjoying the quiet. The entire trip was so peaceful…until about 3 A.M. when an owl started hooting right outside our tent and woke me up. I could have easily gone back to sleep, until I noticed that our normally two-foot high air mattress was now so deflated that I could feel the rocks and sticks underneath the tent, stabbing me in my hip. photo_1

Besides the fact that Dale and I were so squished together that it seemed we had eaten magnets for dinner, we probably looked like two hotdogs in a bun. I started giggling and woke Dale up, who then proceeded to turn over and as his body weight adjusted the air in the mattress, I was catapulted off the other side.

So even though we both woke up each with a wickedly sore back and bags under our eyes from lack of sleep, I can’t wait until our next camping excursion.

Just to see what funny thing happens.

Sunday Morning Bliss

| | Posted in Aging, Children, church, Family, Grandparents, Humor, laugh, Laughter, Mother, Older, Parents, South, Southern, Southern Living | Tagged , , ,

When I was a little girl, I went to church every Sunday with my parents. Church, for me, is pretty important for obvious reasons, but what I really love, is that every time I smell the inside of the church I attend with my husband, as I walk through the door, I am flooded by memories.

But not of this church.

Or my parent’s church.

But my grandmother’s church.

A little country church that my grandmother has gone to her entire life. A church where, as a little girl, she would sneak in and swim in the baptismal pool behind the church on scorching hot Mississippi summer days.

A church that my grandfather helped renovate and rebuild many years later.

A place where I feel closer to God than any place on earth, and can still feel my grandfather’s calloused brick mason’s hands as he would lead me inside. I can still see the mud on my little white, lace trimmed gloves, and I can still feel the weight of my little patent leather pocketbook that I would fill up with dozens of pretty rocks that I would find out in the gravel parking lot before the service.Screen Saver 427

I can still hear my sweet grandmother singing “Just as I Am” so terribly off-key that, even as a child, I knew those notes were definitely not right.

I can still hear Brother Floyd’s booming voice as he taught about Heaven and Hell from the pulpit, making me jump when his voice would get louder and louder as he was making his point.

And I can feel the hardness of the wooden pew as I would adjust and readjust to keep my butt cheeks from going to sleep. I am convinced people made those pews so uncomfortable simply so that no one would fall asleep during the service.

But church wasn’t always entertaining for a child, so I would find ways to amuse myself. I’d draw on the bulletin that was handed to my mother as we walked in the sanctuary. I would play “I Spy” with myself and try to go through the entire alphabet trying to match items with letters.

Or, as I did one particular Sunday morning, got up from the front pew and proceeded to do somersaults down the center of the aisle. My mother was mortified, and my grandmother, who was also the organist, just laughed.

Luckily, this was also a church where 99% of the congregants are related to me somehow because the town is so small, so no one was really surprised when I did that.

As an adult, I no longer do somersaults down the aisle (although there ARE a few rocks in my purse), but I have come to realize that no matter where I go, or what church I attend, I know my love for the church started there.

And that is a very good memory, indeed.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

| | Posted in Children, Family, Humor, laugh, Laughter, Mother, Parenting, Parents, Son, Step Parenting, Uncategorized, Wife, women | Tagged , , , ,

Where did the summer go? It seems that school was released last week! Where did all of the lazy days by the pool go? Why is it still dark outside when I’m getting up? When did we get back from vacation? How do I work my alarm clock?

That’s right. School starts today and all of the kiddos are going back.

Kids are complaining and mumbling about how life sucks, and how tired they are, and that the first day of school just happens to be the worst day of the WHOLE YEAR.

The obnoxious buzzing of the alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m. It’s the butt-crack of dawn and time to get my step-son up for the first day of school.

I shuffle into the bathroom and turn on the light. Good grief. I feel like a Gremlin. Bright light! Bright light! It’s so bright that it actually hurts. I take a horrifying glance at my reflection in the mirror. I look like I’ve been electrocuted. I really don’t like early mornings.

I have to force myself up the stairs to his room, knock on the door and turn on the light. Now he feels like a Gremlin.

He growls at me.

I sleep-walk into the kitchen and make a quick breakfast for him even though he says he doesn’t want much to eat. I pack a brown-bag lunch full of fruit, cheese, chips, yogurt, and a chocolate bar (I’m not a health food nut – he just has food allergies) and put it by his book bag.

Last night, I made sure new gym clothes were tucked away in his backpack. What seems like ten-thousand dollars-worth of school supplies have been placed in bags to be taken straight to the teacher’s desk. We almost needed to take out a small equity loan to cover the cost of all the supplies the school required this year. How he is going to carry all of this mess is beyond me.

His school uniform has already been washed and pressed. Socks and brand new shoes are placed by the bedroom door.

I confirm that his teeth are brushed, his shirt is tucked in, and his hair doesn’t show any signs of bedhead.

We jump in the car and head over to the school. It seems that every person in the city is in the car rider line today. Hopefully I won’t get in a wreck because I literally just pulled on a pair of shorts and tucked my night shirt into them. It’s going to be A-W-K-W-A-R-D if someone sees me.

He gets out of the car, tells me “bye,” and heads into the building.

Yep.

School started today, and for me and 99% of other parents out there, it’s THE BEST DAY EVER.

And since I’ve been done with school for years now, you know what that also means?

I get to go back to bed!

Toughness Comes In Many Colors

| | Posted in Humor, laugh, Laughter, Mother, Parents, Sports, Step Parenting, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , ,

I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy. I love camping and working on my house. I still like manicures and makeup and I love the color pink so I guess I’m a bit of a girly girl as well.

My step daughter recently decided that she didn’t want to wear pink anymore because she didn’t want to look like a little girl. She’s 12.

I tried to explain to her that there is nothing wrong with wearing pink and that you can still assert plenty of toughness when wearing it.

I told her about one of the best concerts I have ever attended – the Metallica concert. My dear friend, Kim, and I were standing in line, waiting to get in the arena. An older gentleman that worked for the arena was walking up and down the line asking to view inside people’s purses (just in case they were trying to smuggle in booze or guns). He walked by, checked my purse and went on down the line. A few minutes later he came back up the line and asked to check my purse again.

The third time he walked by and asked to see in my purse I started to wonder if maybe I had some underwear in my purse or maybe someone had stashed a Playboy in there. Finally, Kim, who was wearing the standard blue jeans and black shirt – attire that you would expect to see at a Metallica concert, said “Do you not recognize the fact that you have checked her purse two times already??!? She is
the ONLY person at this entire concert in PINK!”

Yep. You can wear pink and still be cool enough to go to a Metallica concert.

Recently, we took Bailey to the shooting range so that she could target shoot with a 22. Again, she had refused to wear pink that day, but she still had to wear my ear protection – which happen to be hot pink. She said she didn’t feel tough enough wearing the pink earplugs…that was until she saw my target covered in holes and me in a pink shirt and pink sound suppressors.

So yes, whether you’re rocking out to Metallica or shooting a 9 mm handgun, just remember, toughness comes in many colors. It just depends on how you wear it.

Just ask this little guy. And he’s wearing green. photo(18)

When in Key West, Beware of the Gherkin Patch

| | Posted in Aging, Doctor, florida, Humor, Husband, laugh, Laughter, Older, South, vacation, women | Tagged , , , , , , ,

I have a tiny bladder. It’s kind if embarrassing to admit this, but since it has to deal with the rest of this story, so be it.

I have to go so much that my brother-in-law, who is a urologist, thought I might be diabetic. Considering my love for sweets, all things mostly made of carbs, and the fact that I’m a self-called starchitarian (the bready sister to being a vegetarian), it made perfect sense.

The other reason could be because of how much water I drink a day. I drink a LOT of water.

Dale has gotten quite used to my pee-pee dance movements and knows exactly when he needs to help me find a place to go.

Today, we were by the pool at our hotel in Key West, when nature called. I had just downed an entire bottle of SmartWater (I’m not sure that stuff really works because I actually feel kinda stupid for paying $3 for a bottle of water) when I realized I needed to GO.

I was about to pop and the long walk back to our room seemed like the distance of a half marathon. I asked one of the ladies if there was a restroom nearby.

“Sure. It’s upstairs on the top deck”.

I jumped up, put on my flip flops and bolted up the stairs…completely missing the sign that said “Clothing Optional Deck.”

Just so you know, clothing is not optional for me. It’s actually pretty much a requirement. I mean, I even jump in the pool at least wearing a bathing suit – sometimes even with one of those sun shirts on. Clothing for me isn’t optional. It’s a necessity.

However, for the folks hanging out on the “clothing optional deck,” it was VERY much an option for them.

A couple of them giggled at my obvious discomfort as I choked on air when I realized where I was. Men who were clearly registered AARP members were letting it “all hang out.” The sheer amount of women’s boobs just flopping around put a strip club to shame. (Okay. Maybe I’m jealous because my boobs don’t flop. They are so small they don’t move at ALL) but that is completely beside the point.

Regardless, seeing boobs and everything else out in the open when all I wanted to do was find a bathroom really messed me up. I tried being discreet but ended up looking like Stevie Wonder while trying to open the bathroom door.

“My eyes! My eyes!” I thought, thinking I might have damaged my retinas.

After I did my business I sat in the stall a few more minutes trying to figure out how to get out of there without making another scene of myself. I pulled my hat way down over my face like the character “Dumb Donald” from Fat Albert, put on my glasses, flew out the door and beelined it towards the stairs.

Dale asked me where I had been for so long and I told him I got held up in the gherkin patch that doubled as a nude sun deck upstairs.

Dale doubled over with laughter. After a while my blood pressure finally returned to normal but the red in my face stayed…and it wasn’t from sunburn.

So even though I didn’t show my girlie parts on the sun deck today, I’m not going to be at the pool tomorrow. I think I’ll head on over to the beach instead.

Because I’d much rather my skin blister from running through scalding hot sand to get to the bathroom than have to ever witness another wiener roast.

20130717-142938.jpg<

The Often Hilarious Miscommunication of Texting

| | Posted in Family, Humor, Husband, laugh, Laughter, Marriage, Parents, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently realized that my phone doesn’t ring any more. It just “pings.” That is, I only notice my phone when I’m getting a text message. I actually dislike talking on the phone so I don’t really mind it when someone texts me instead of calls me.

But there are lots problems with texting. Just ask my friend, who texted her husband a sexy message about what she wanted to do with him after he got home from work.

Problem was, she didn’t text her husband.

She texted her best friend’s husband.

And she found out about her error when he texted her back. Fortunately, he found the whole thing hilarious and didn’t text her back with some skeevy and perverted response.

My problem with texting seems to be the “auto-correct” feature, where the phone thinks you have misspelled a word and changes it to one it thinks you are trying to write.

One evening, I was sending a text to a friend about a triathlon I was participating in, and I suggested that she sign up as well. It was called the “Acworth Women’s Triathlon.” However, the autocorrect feature decided that Acworth was a misspelling, and changed the word to “scrotum.” So the text that she got indicated that I was participating in the “Scrotum Triathlon.”

You can imagine our hysterical laughter when she sent me a reply that she wasn’t sure that was a triathlon she wanted to participate in, but she found it ballsy that I was going to do it.

I have learned that before sending a text message, I need to read it thoroughly to ensure there are no mistaken auto-corrections.

photo(2)And then, there is my mother, who just got an iPhone about a year ago. We introduced her to texting and were thrilled that she actually caught on rather quickly. She picked up the texting lingo and abbreviations, and uses LOL (laugh out loud) often. However, sometimes she would send me cryptic messages that I couldn’t understand. Come to find out, she was just making stuff up.

It’s sort of like the girl who sent her mother a text with some news from college. Her mother replied with “WTF.” The daughter was horrified that her mother would reply with such vulgarity, and responded back to her mom, “I’m not sure WTF means what you think it means. What DO you think it means?”

To which her mother replied, “Well that’s fantastic!”

(For those who are not in the texting world, WTF does NOT mean “Well that’s fantastic!”)

The lesson here is that whether you are a novice or veteran text messager, just be sure to read what you are sending and also confirm it’s going to the right person.

Otherwise, that message you are trying to send to your friend saying you are ditching work so you can hit the lake might actually end up going to your boss.

And then you might get a reply of “WTF?”, and no, that wouldn’t be fantastic.

Dental Drama

| | Posted in Aging, Doctor, Family, health, Humor, Husband, laugh, Laughter, Older, Spouse, wellness | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

It seems the older I get, the more I end up going to a doctor of some sort. My latest visit was to see the dentist. Just so you know, the dentist ranks right up there with my desire to go to the gynecologist. It’s never on the high priority list.

A few years ago, my dentist retired. He was the one I had gone to since I first grew in my teeth over 40 years ago. His office was over an hour away so I had only attempted to try out another dentist that was a little closer once before. (I had been to see him once and one night when I was watching the news, his face popped up on my TV screen. He had been arrested for murdering his girlfriend AND his wife.)

I immediately decided that the hour drive to see my old dentist was worth it.

After Dale and I got married he suggested that I go to his dentist that he has been to for HIS entire life.

I made my appointment and they advised me that since I was a new patient, they would need to run the full gamut of x-rays and tests on me…so I should be prepared to be at there for a couple of hours.

Oh yay. Something to look forward to.

I arrived for my appointment and they took me into one of the rooms. It didn’t have a door. Okay. So what if I’m screaming in pain or crying out of fear? The whole office is going to hear me slobbering like a baby. This isn’t starting out well.

The first technician comes in and says that she needs to take photos of my mouth. Ok. That’s good. I can handle photos.

Then she proceeds to shove these plastic mouth expanders in so that my lips are held wide open so you can see all of my teeth…as well as my stomach and kidneys. My lips felt like they were going to end up looking like the elastic on some old lady’s underwear – stretched way beyond their limitations.

I felt like a dog hanging out of a car window going 120 MPH down the highway. Definitely the same idea. Definitely not as much fun.

She took several photos and then said “Okay, now we are going to get some x-rays!”

She was so cheerful it sounded like we were about to go to a party!

She began to put together some plastic pieces that looked like a puzzle and I jokingly asked where those were going to fit.

“Oh, we use these now instead of those horrible little cardboard x-rays. They were so bad for you! Don’t worry. They’ll fit in your mouth. But it might be uncomfortable – for a minute.”

I opened my mouth and she somehow crammed these huge plastic pieces in place. “Now bite down.”

Uhh, what?

I can’t move my tongue. I’m having a hard time breathing. I think I’m already bleeding and you want me to bite down? I felt like I was ready to be hitched to a plow so I could go clear a field. This was not good.

Finally she was done. If I could have shot x-rays out of my eyeballs she would have been toast.

I could breathe a sigh of relief.

That was until the next technician came in.

“So, it says you have not been to the dentist in three years…” she said with a slightly disapproving tone.

“Uh, yes. I really don’t like going to the dentist,” I said.

“Well, I’ll make sure this doesn’t hurt much.”

Here we go again.

She took out a sandblaster that I’m pretty sure could remove graffiti off a concrete wall and pointed it towards my mouth. Of course, this was right after she used a meat hook to scrape any plaque off my teeth. I’m confident that with all of the scraping she did up under my gums, she got some plaque that had been there since I was in the sixth grade.

Then onto the dental floss. (I’m a religious flosser so this should have been easy-peasy.) But apparently, when you’re at the dentist, you’re supposed to push dental floss with excessive force in between your teeth just to be sure you make your gums bleed.

My gums are so swollen it looks like I’ve eaten a can of yellow jackets.

Then she sprays water into my mouth and then uses this suction thing to suck it all back up. I feel like I’m being waterboarded. Where in the heck is a sink? Can’t I just spit? The suction thing keeps getting stuck on my tongue and then my tonsils. I’m gagging.

I hate this.

Then she starts asking me questions. Now I have never understood this: Why would anyone ask you questions when they know you can’t answer without sounding like you’ve swallowed a pillow?

“I pruyus qwuiuhg wghhhek Akohuih Ilwlla suhur shia” I said. That meant “Yes, I’ve been watching American Idol too. Who do you think will win?”

My former dentist used to just hum Broadway show tunes while he was cleaning my teeth. Some “Phantom of the Opera” might really calm me down right now. She might want to try it.

The dentist comes in and looks at my chompers. He is very nice and has a really nice smile. He’s a walking billboard for going to the dentist.

He inspects all of my teeth, individually. During this time he is asking me questions. I’m sorry. I can’t answer you right now because that camera you have shoved in my mouth is dangerously close to my voice box.

“Do you drink sodas?”

My love for soda started at an early age...

My love for soda started at an early age…

“Yes but only one a day”, I said.

Tisk, tisk.

“Trust me”, I said. “You didn’t want me coming to this appointment without having caffeine first. I might have bitten you.”

He laughed but I’m pretty sure he understood that I wasn’t joking.

Overall, he said that everything looks good. I have the beginnings of cavities in my upper molars but that’s probably due just to age.

Seriously? He’s going to get on the gynecologist bandwagon and start telling me that things are falling apart because of my AGE?

That’s it. I’m not going to any more doctors until I’m eligible for a senior citizens discount.

But according to all of my doctors, that might be sooner than I think.

(Now I know that the ladies in my dentist office are probably going to read this, so please let me add the following disclaimer…I had not been to the dentist in three years so I’m sure you had your work cut out for you. After reading this, please remember that MOST of this was in jest, so please do not take it out on me at my next visit. haha)