Oct 25 2019
Friday 5: Kind of Like Sticking Your Head in a Beehive
Well, this was supposed to be last Friday’s “Friday Five” thingie but I’m a scattered mess inside that head of mine. So let’s try this again for today, I guess. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve used a similar Friday 5 title in the past. Oh well.
THAT TIME I WAS A PAWN IN A GAME OF DENTAL CHESS
Remember when I missed my dentist appointment last year and panicked and then had to go and find a new dentist because I could never show my face there again? (Oh, you would have just called, apologized, and scheduled a new appointment? WELL AREN’T YOU RATIONAL AND BALANCED.)
Well, my new dentist (the one I think I have a crush on) referred me to a periodontist. Dentist #1 did x-rays two years ago so Dentist #2 said that we could probably get away with just using those rather than deal with insurance blah-blah, so I was like, “Fine I guess I will call Dentist #1 and get my records.” Dentist #1’s office was like, “Yeah you have to come in here and sign a release for that.” UGH.
So I went in there last week, hoping to sign the thing and flee, but as the receptionist was pulling up my records from the filing cabinet, a lady was sitting at a computer in the corner and apparently had been listening so she pulled my records on up the computer and exclaimed, “This xray is from two years ago! Why do you want this!?” and that’s when I realized that it was The Dentist so now I had to actual FACE HER and tell her that my new dentist had referred me to a periodontist and thought we could get away with using them and she was like, “WHO IS THE DENTIST” and I was like, “BITCH WHY” except that really, I meekly mumbled his name and then she asked me who the periodontist is and when I told her, she sucked in some air through her teeth and exchanged an “oh boy” look with the receptionist, prompting me to ask, “What? What? WHAT?” until she finally shrugged and said, “Well, I don’t like to talk bad…OK he’s just…not that GOOD” and I was like, “……” and then she was like, “Would you mind if I gave you my own referrals?” and I was like, “WTF is happening here” because the vibe got SO HEAVY AND ELECTRIC like everything else in the world had just stopped and now this strange dental dance was playing out in front of me.
I let her give me some referral cards and then of course this sent me into a spiral because WHAT IF I MAKE THE WRONG CHOICE and it was already so difficult to get a consultation to begin with and that appointment is coming up in two weeks and OMG I HATE ORAL ISSUES. Meanwhile, the receptionist was all, “So, why are you leaving us anyway?” and it turned into this super uncomfortable “it’s not you it’s me” routine and I was sweating and tugging at my collar.
Then I got home and it occurred to me that Dentist #1 is the reason I have to go to the periodontist in the first place because one of the procedures they performed on me was apparently inadequate and I have to have it done again. UGH.
IT’LL JUST TAKE 2 SECONDS
A few weeks ago (because that’s how behind I am at blogging!), we were just hanging out after work when someone knocked on the door. I fled immediately, as I do when there comes a knock upon the door. From my perch on the steps with our cat Drew, who also runs when she hears the sinister knocks of villains, I heard Henry saying, “I’m making dinner right now.” And then he repeated it. And then again. And again. And each time, whoever was at the door kept saying, “It’ll just take 2 seconds.” I was like, “Shit, who the fuck is at the door being so persistent, is Chooch selling cookie dough again?”
Turns out, it was some guy from Direct Energy and instead of just saying “No” or “I’m not interested,” he lead the guy on by making it sound like he just didn’t have time to talk to him right now, so when he finally shut the door on him, the guy CONTINUED TO STAND ON OUR PORCH and I know this because I could see his creepy silhouette and I was angry because I wanted to come back out of hiding and drink my coffee which was getting cold on the coffee table.
So Henry sighed, came back out of the kitchen, opened the door and said, “I’m cooking dinner” and the guy was like, “It’ll only take 2 seconds” and JUST LIKE THAT the whole weird door-to-door energy song and dance picked right back up. I was like JUST SAY NO, BRO and Henry finally got him to leave and I said, “Haley was outside on her porch the whole time, why didn’t he just go and give her his spiel?” So Henry then lectured me because the only reason these people come to our house is that I’m constantly coerced into signing up for things.
Then Henry acted SHOCKED when he CAME BACK an hour later, but he never told him NO! This time, Chooch was home and answered the door and the guy was like, “Your dad told me to come back after he made dinner” which was FALSE but ok so Chooch was like, “HEY HENRY GET DOWN HERE AND TALK TO THIS GUY” but Henry was like, “Not gonna.”
I’m in the kitchen washing dishes and I look out and see that the guy is still standing on the porch. I told Chooch, “Tell that guy to leave” and he was like, “NO HE’S NICE AND I FEEL BAD” so I told Chooch, “Look, just do what all of us adults do in these situations – lie. LIE THROUGH YOUR FUCKING TEETH, SONNY BOY. GOD WILL FORGIVE YOU.” Chooch told the guy that his dad wasn’t home and the guy repeated, “He told me to come back after dinner” like that’s an actual time on the clock, but Chooch was like, “OK cool but he’s not here, so…” The guy said, “OK buddy, I’ll just go and do something else and come back.” NO PLZ DON’T! (He didn’t. Yet.)
I’LL TURN THIS DAMN BUS AROUND
One day after school, Chooch super-casually me that there was an incident with the bus driver on the first day of Gifted. Chooch has gifted every Friday, but it’s off-site at the Gifted Center so the students from his school that attend that program get shuttled there on a school bus. “So, Trevor and I were just talking and apparently the bus driver thought it was ‘too loud’ so he pulled the bus over and yelled at us.” Chooch said that they made “HNGGGGGH” faces at each other and then apologized. But then, at the end of the day, the students from Chooch’s school were stranded because the bus driver never showed. They had to wait for a back-up bus to arrive and when they got back to their school, the principal off-handedly mentioned that the bus driver from that morning didn’t show up BECAUSE HE QUIT.
“BECAUSE OF YOU!?” I cried.
“I guess,” Chooch shrugged. “He was really mad that morning and was yelling about how we were going to have to spend all year together.”
“Exactly how loud were you talking?!”
“I don’t know, like this…” and then he demonstrated a raised-voiced conversation similar to a businessman trying to talk over top of a woman in the boardroom, but something tells me there is more to the story than that.
Anyway, a few weeks later, that bus driver came back and Chooch said that he and Trevor are “super quiet” around him now.
Why am I having Billy Madison visions?
Oh, here’s Penelope.
THE LIFE-CHANGING ESSAY
Well, here’s another tale about my son because, friendly reminder, I’m a mom.
The other night, Chooch and I were out on a walk when he mentioned that he has to write a three-page essay about a moment that changed his life. So I’m walking along, mind swimming with all sorts of instances involving me and my awesome ideas and super fun parenting, thinking that maybe he’ll choose the moment he went to the DMZ in Korea or the time the singer from Emarosa got him to crowd-surf at one of their shows when he was like 9, or the moment he realized he loves math.
“So I knew right away—” he started, and I’m like, “Oh here it is! This is going to be so profound!”
“–that it was the time I watched that episode of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ where Lily is a loud chewer because that’s when I realized that OMG I hate the sound of chewing! Honestly, there are times when I sit in the backseat during road trips and cry.”
Um.
OK.
But three pages though?
Anyway, he changed it to the moment he went from the general population opinion of “yay rollercoasters” to the coaster enthusiast battle-cry of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT’S AN RMC IBOX, GOTTA GET THAT COASTER CRED, HOLD MY SLUSHIE.”
So, we’ll see how that goes.
I get so excited when I’m watching a K-Drama and see a place I’ve been! Shout out to the DDP, what what.
HUBERT FTW
Last Saturday, we were en route to a haunted house and passed a spot where there used to be a mini-golf place, which got me thinking about how my ex, Psycho Mike, and I were obsessed with playing mini-golf this one summer, I think it was 1997 when I was 17/18. We liked it so much that we tried to go every mini-golf place we could find in the—-wait for—-Yellow Pages. Sometimes this would bite us in the ass because we’d drive all this way and it wasn’t a mini-golf place anymore, but you know, who has time to call ahead, amirite.
Then I remembered the time that I brought my old pet Pacman frog, Hubert, to play with us. I had a little portable aquarium for him and it was probably terrible to tote him around but I was a dumb kid who had no business raising a frog.
“Anyway,” I told Henry after taking a big breath because you’ve probably never heard me tell a story but I get really excited and start speed-talking. “Hubert ‘won’ and Mike got so pissed!”
Henry took his eyes off the road long enough to toss me a concerned frown.
“I KNOW RIGHT??” I screamed, but turns out, Henry was frowning about the part where I brought my frog to play mini-golf.
(Seriously though, Mike was SO ANGRY and I remember fighting about it for the rest of the night because that’s the kind of great fucking boy I was dating, and this is not a domestic violence joke but the truth: I probably for sure dodged a bullet by getting out of that relationship.)
Later that week, I felt inspired to dig around my old stuff to see if I still had the scorecard because, since mini golf was our game, I kept all that shit. And yep, still have it, stapled to a journal that he and I shared which honestly gave me PTSD-shakes when I opened it so I should probably burn it or drop-kick it off a bridge but: the environment, and also, I am a memorabilia packrat.
Don’t ask why I called myself “Bitch” other than I was 17 & dumb and also a pretty big bitch.
At work earlier this week, I was telling Todd this story because he LOVES Vintage Erin yarns.
“I have a picture of the scorecard for proof,” I said, scrolling through my camera roll.
“Oh, I believe you!” Todd laughed. “Taking a frog to play mini-golf definitely sounds like something you would do.” He then went on to say that he’s also not surprised that I was a mini-golf maniac, since there is always something I’m 100% gung-ho about.
And oh boy, was I gung-ho about mini-golf. Now I can barely stand it.
OMG I HOPE THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN WITH KOREA?!
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