In the Beginning. . .

After reading the update from the Writing Road, I thought I would give blogging a try. Both Beth and Tiffany are, of course, writing goddesses, and know so much more than I. But I have to admit, I am off to a rocky start this month.
November started with a bang. Well, actually, more like a crack. My days generally start fairly early. I set my alarm for 4:45 so that I can workout at the gym before work, which starts at 7:30. This means I usually hit the snooze button at least twice and end up eating a breakfast bar as I'm driving down the road. Anyhoo, while eating breakfast in my car on the way to work Thursday, I hear this sickening crack. I knew it couldn't be my bar, since I've found that low fat, sugar-free bars generally lack both flavor and texture. I suspected that I had broken my only tooth with a root canal, and I knew that there was only one way to deal with it: ignore the whole thing and get on with my day. But I did take the precaution of simply not eating anything. This worked for about four hours. Unfortunately, hunger drove me to eat a piece of cheese. This managed to drive a broken piece of tooth up into my gum like an arrowhead, leaving me in pain, and searching for my dentists number.
My dentist is a kind and wonderful man who I am sure I would enjoy talking to anywhere else but his office. Perhaps its because once I'm in his chair, all conversation is reduced to a slurred form of ventriloquism. Or maybe its the needles and drills.
His receptionist promises me a opening as soon as I can get into his office. Now comes the task of finding my boss. As a nanny I can hardly just leave. Especially when the baby is asleep in the nursery. Unfortunately, both Mom and Dad were in meetings, and I couldn't get in touch with them.
I continued to pick things up around the house while redialing their cell phones every fifteen minutes. One of the tasks the father asked of me was to pick up the balls that had rolled into the creek that runs through their backyard. I carefully made my way down the bank and got two of the balls out, then headed for the football that had floated under the little footbridge. That's when I fell in.
So there I sat, wet, covered in mud, with a half-inch arrowhead of tooth jammed into my gum. Now usually when I find myself in these type of situations (oh yes. You just don't know me yet!) I have to either laugh or cry. They're both good choices. This time I opted for big slobbery tears. Luckily, by the time I reached the hiccuping stage, the Mom called and was heading home. This busy woman cancelled the rest of her day so that I could get to the Dentists office. I feel appreciated!
But now I had to face the dreaded dental chair!
I have to reiterate how very nice my Dentist's whole office is. Knowing I was in pain, they showed me right back to a room and where they had Novocaine waiting. Then they got ready to start the drilling!
"Sthloow, hlows yowl lwife goin?" I ask the Dentist without moving my numb lips or knocking the cotton out of my mouth.
"Oh, fine" He replied being fluent in nervous mumbling. He set about preparing my tooth for a crown. He explained that since the root canal had removed the blood supply from the tooth, I really should have had the tooth crowned six months or so after the first work. I knew this. I had just been putting it off.
For about two years (O.K. maybe a little more.)
An hour later, my impressions were off to the lab. The broken piece was out of my gums. And I was the proud owner of a temporary crown. Oh, and he only said "I told you so" once.
The next day, the three year old asked if I was a princess since I just got a crown.
I looked at her and said:
"Of course I am!"