Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Tuesday, February 25, 2003 Graduation My mouth has been shot full of so much Novocaine that my entire head is numb. I have to twist my neck if I want to look to the side, my tongue feels like it’s the size of a burrito, and I sound like Sylvester the Cat when I try to ssthhpea—excuse me, when I try to speak. My next couple of meals will consist of Slim-Fast™. And I couldn’t be happier. * * * It was a foggy February morning and I was running late for work. I nosed my car to the edge of the street. There was a pickup truck parked with its front bumper practically parallel to the left edge of the driveway. But around it, I could see a car slowly turning the corner onto my street. If I hurried, I could pull out and be out of its way before it drew even with where I was. I hurried. There was a car in front of it that had been obscured by the parked pick up truck. My front bumper crunched into its right front fender. Nobody was hurt, but fixing the damage to the other driver’s car cost my insurance company nine hundred dollars and change. I left the scrapes on my bumper alone because accidents resulting in more than a thousand dollars of damage require one to notify the police. And they were gunning for my public-menace ass as it was. That accident was three years ago this past Sunday. And I couldn’t be happier. * * * This week, I get to start worrying less about some things that have been worrying me. For one, I now only have one speeding ticket on the past three years of my driving record. And that one will be two years old on Friday. The next business day, I plan to call our insurance company and let them know that since the last three years have been so much better than the previous three driving-wise, I’d appreciate it if they could stop gouging me quite so deeply, thanks very much. So, provided I don’t get caught breaking the sound barrier during my commute for the rest of the week, my days of exorbitant car insurance rates will be coming to an end. (I looked for a little Java applet that would knock wood every time someone downloaded this page, but I really don’t know much about that kind of thing. Do it for me, would you please? The knocking, I mean. Thanks, that’d be great.) The other thing that’s been weighing on me is my teeth. Today’s appointment marked the end of my “course of treatment” (dentist talk for “endless and expensive torture sessions”). The last of my cavities have been filled, all of my roots that needed canalling have been canalled, and I have more crowns than a homecoming court. I’m done. Finished. Today was the first time in a year and a half that I didn’t have to get out of the chair and go right to the office to make the dreaded “next appointment.” My next appointment’s already made, it’s six months off, and it’s merely a semi-annual cleaning. I’m actually kind of looking forward to it. And not just because I learned my lesson after skipping a couple dozen or so of them. Now that I have a smaller percentage of my original teeth than Joan Rivers has of her original face, I want to take better care of them. In fact, I’ve already started, as Trash can confirm, having had to add dental floss to the “utilities” column of our budget. I don’t want to go through another “course of treatment” like this one. At least not without some tougher torture restrictions added to the Geneva Convention. And the OCD I’ve developed regarding brushing and flossing is an excellent trade for not having to lie still for hours at a time while screaming power tools grind away at my choppers and fling bits of dental shrapnel down the front of my shirt. (Actually, I do still have a tooth that’s going to need to be pulled, but I’m not counting that because a) it’s technically oral surgery and b) it kind of undercuts my theme. So I’m going to gloss over that.) It’s great not to have to worry about these things any more. Plus our furnace works fine with the new filter, so I don’t have to worry about that either. And I just found out that a promotion that I’ve been angling for isn’t going to happen because the company won’t create the new position I wanted, so I don’t have to worry about whether I would have been able to do the job. With all this worrying behind me, by next week I’ll be so happy that I’ll be peeing my pants. Which worries me. posted by M. Giant 3:19 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:
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