it started with a seed

over 4 years ago (and i remember this because it was just before the last world cup), i went to london with my bf at the time and my parents, who were visiting from canada.  we rented a sedan, took ourselves for a holiday of live theatre and sightseeing, and visited portobello market.  and in that lovely market, we bought some seedy bread.  and one of those seeds got stuck between my teeth.

like, really stuck.  stuck so badly that for a few days i had a constant dull ache on that side of my mouth.

eventually, with my mad skills in the flossing department, i got that seed out and there would always be a larger space between those two teeth than any of my others.

i adapted to this by carrying around my favourite kind of floss to make sure i thoroughly floss after eating anything that had a tendency to get stuck in there.  apples, beef, anything stringy.  gross, but i never got the 'floss more' lecture from the dentist because i became mildly obsessed.

and when my sis and bro-in-law and i were sitting down to a cold beer and a bite to eat in victoria last weekend before boarding our plane back to calgary, i noticed that i had a hole in my tooth.  a hole in my tooth!  i had my sister investigate it (yes, in the restaurant) and we agreed that it was most likely a cavity, which seemed inevitable.  i made sure to get in to the dentist the very next day and when they told me that my tooth was actually broken and that they suggested repairing it with a crown, i braced myself for the freezing, the drills, and the awfulness of the dentist in general and went for it.

but being frozen that evening really threw me for a loop and put me in a bit of a funk that lasted through the week.  the miserable weather and confusing text message dating certainly didn't help, but the invasion of having someone's hands in my mouth and not being able to feel half of my face for a number hours seems to have had quite a psychological impact.  and it wasn't nice.

i dug myself out of the funk that week and had a lovely weekend full of beers on patios, hikes in kananaskis, and a patio-hopping fundraising event full of food, wine, and good friends.

but that was not what was on my mind later in the evening after i was at the dentist, as i was on the phone with a call centre in india, half my face frozen, having an ugly cry because i didn't know the difference between a modem and a router.  but the nice, young fellow on the phone wasn't bothered and sorted my internets while i felt sorry for myself.  but i bet that if he were located in canada, working at midnight, and having to put up with a whiney mess like me, he would not have been nearly as patient!