Cool for Cats and Trial by Teeth
So anyway, Nancy the kitten has – not surprisingly – a mother. And four siblings. And 43 followers. My little hidey-hole here is overrun with cats, all of whom have very big ears and a permanent hunger. The only way is to feed them a long way from the house. There (a long way from the house) it soon becomes apparent that my neighbours are all doing the same thing. Cats are very crafty. But when I spit at them, they run off like so many terrified stoats.
Some of you may remember the offensively hilarious Spitting Image puppet of Roy Hattershshshsley, the one-time Deputy Labour Party leader and Yorkshire cricket bore who could shower anyone with spittle from thirty paces. I’ve always done quite a passable impression of Roy, but since having eight teeth removed, the expectorating feature is unbelievably authentic. Just by reading the opening paragraphs of the American Bill of Rights, I can wash entire walls of my little house here. If I could get close enough to Venizelos, I could assassinate the fat bastard by drowning him, and claim it was accidental. It would become famous as the most perfect (and globally applauded) crime in history. The only problem would be dehydration, but it’d be worth it.
When selling you some procedure or other, you will never, ever hear a dentist say, “This is going to hurt like the very f**k”. It would be rather akin to Jeremy Hunt saying, “I am a secret Nurse molester, and I am going to give it to the NHS right up the arse”. It’s the truth, but not the way to Close That Sale.
So let me speak on behalf of dentists everywhere, and offer a cautionary tale for the dentally vain. If you have one big four-girder bridge implant bored on the same day as you have eight teeth pulled out, soon afterwards it is going to hurt far, far beyond that relatively anodyne dimension The Very F**k. It is going to hurt like the Infinite Butt-F**k with a yardbrush after which the brush comes up your throat and hammers away at your gums. And ignore all that website poppycock about “mild pain for 48 hours”. I have taken enough painkillers over the last four days to stop a pissed-off herd of Diplodocus Dinosaurs, and all they’ve done is vaguely confuse my brain. The painkillers, not the dinosaurs. I haven’t seen a diplodocus since, ooooh, must be 10 million BC. I was busy rescuing Racquel Welch at the time. Sorry, it’s the painkillers.
Sadly, my brain isn’t so confused as to have forgotten what pain is. I’m here to tell you that the bane of pain stays mainly on the brain. No, my cerebrum is sort of occasionally willing to reduce the throb of the gob by one notch on the Richter Scale, for maybe a minute or two. But then Krakatoa erupts where my last incisor used to be, and I scribble notes for passing strangers that say, ‘If you are armed, please kill me now’.
Maria the dentist was, however, as good as her word when she predicted, “I will remove all eight teeth in under two minutes and you will not feel a thing”. It’s just that I should’ve paid more attention to the gleam in her eye when she said it. It’s like the old gag about the bloke who gets shown the world’s greatest golf course in Hell by the Devil. As he signs up for Eternity, the golf course disappears to be replaced by wailing men being lashed to death, knee deep in molten lava. “What happened to the golf course?” says the novice. “Ah” says Beelzebub, “You see, before you were a prospect: now, you’re the client”. Advertising people love that joke.
I didn’t feel a thing at the time. But then, Maria the German-trained dentist had been injecting my jaw with Novocaine like a demented female fracker for the previous twenty minutes.
“Can you feel that now?” she enquired, hitting my nose with an oil-derrick.
“Ogh go” I replied, shaking my head. But she looked doubtful.
“Do you know if you’re still alive?” she asked ten minutes later.
“Got greally” I said.
“Excellent,” she concluded, “Then we shall begin”.
I’m sure it’s occurred to you too, but exactly why TF is it that dentists fill your mouth with cotton wool, jets of water and small cars before asking if you can tell them what the capital of Mesapotamia is? Why do they wave away your worries about doing forty X-rays and then retreat three miles before pressing the button? Why was the Nazi psycho in Marathon Man a dentist drilling Dustin Hoffman’s teeth without anaesthetic? And why do dentists always say “This won’t hurt a bit?” Only the last two of these are obvious: because they are born sadists who’d starve if they told you the truth.
I have ice packs on my ice pack. I’m taking Voltarol up my backside, coke up my nose, and a kilogram per day of paracetamol by mouth, but still the pain is there. I’d grit my teeth, but I don’t have enough teeth left to powder the skin on a rice pudding.
And do you know the worst of it? I’m on an antibiotic called Flagyl.
Have you heard about Flagyl? Flagyl is an antibiotic that contraindicates with alcohol so violently, it doesn’t disagree with booze so much as launch a frenzied attack if you dare to suck on a wine gum. So I’ve been on the wagon for four long, pain-wracked days. I won’t say this is unusual for me, but the last time I did it the telly was under twelve inches wide, only two colours were available onscreen, and half the street was crammed into our house watching the bloody Coronation. The Kray Brothers hadn’t yet graduated to scrumping apples, and the Beatles were still larvaepudlians. It was so long ago, Sergeant Bilko was a Private second class.
I’m going to bed now. Last night I dreamt about pneumatic drills, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel tunnelling through my jaw. Tonight I’m sure it’ll be better. I’m hoping for, maybe, five rounds with Muhammed Ali in his prime. “Now may every living thing, young or old, weak or strong, living near or far, known or unknown, living or departed or yet unborn, may every living thing be full of bliss.”
Especially meeeeeee.
Filed under: At the End of the Day 