Dentist chair thoughts...

I seriously hate the dentist yo.

I’ve been eating candy all my life… I eat it during the day, snack on mints, drink soda all day, smoke occasionally and basically don’t take care of my teeth. I mean, I brush twice a day with my electric toothbrush, but that’s about it. I floss like 3 times a year and because I don’t do it frequently, my gums bleed when I do so… so I hate flossing.

So years of childhood memories eating everlasting gobstoppers, and my grandfathers homemade 2” diameter candy canes, my teeth are jacked…

As I sat in the dentist chair, trying to take my mind off of the idea that a complete stranger is digging into my mouth, the following went through my head:

Why are dentists like psychologists, motherly figures, doctors, sociologists, and part-time comedians all wrapped up into one creepy package? So I get the three degrees about not flossing, not working out enough, eating candy, etc… then he puts me on a “plan”… Dentists always want to put you on a plan to keep coming back and giving them your money.

I’ve been eating candy for as long as I can remember, it was one of those things that old ladies always pulled out of their purses behind my parents back. So I grew up thinking that candy was one of the luxuries of life that my parents were determined to deprive me of next to staying out past the streetlights being on and owning a pair of Air Jordans.

It’s weird how your early childhood experiences and memories seem to shape your entire life….. One of my first memories is falling backwards down the stairs of my house, so I rarely if ever turn my back to stairs. I actually think I was pushed though… My parents used to throw parties in our basement and all I remember about these parties (besides having to share my toys with complete strangers) is waking up with strange kids in my bed in the morning, wiping the sleep out of my eyes, going downstairs, and these fools were still up in my house playing cards?? I think it was the daughter of one of these folks that pushed me down the stairs…. Since my parents don’t have any friends with daughters that are older than me, I think it’s safe to assume they were no longer friends after their kid pushed me down the steps.. ?

I have a coffee table from IKEA that has got to go, but I’ve dragged it around my last two apartments and out to DC from Chicago last year, so I feel like it somehow deserves to live as it has sustained such a long journey. It’s a table with legs / wheels and one day while sitting on the corner, the leg just ripped out the bottom of the table. (damn MDF board!) So I took the leg and just screwed it back into new holes, but they’ve begun to fail and now the table has three straight legs and one crooked leg.

I could always just screw it into a different place so there would be three legs on the corners and one leg offset a bit…. But there is a fine line between doing something different and it looking corny vs doing something different and it looking “interesting” or “designer-y”. Part of me thinks I can pull it off, but its one of those tables that everybody knows is from Ikea, so it only takes one fool to come in and say, “what happened to your table?” to make you feel like an idiot after three other people told you your table is cool.

It’s like how when I take an expensive shirt and pair it with a tie from TJ Maxx, I feel like the whole ensemble is expensive!! But it would only take one person to say, “I saw that tie in TJ Maxx!”, but fortunately, most people wouldn’t want to admit they know this because then it is somehow speaks to their own tastes….. There are certain things you can snatch up out of a Burlington, Marshalls or TJ Maxx that look like they should cost a lot more than what you paid for it… you just have to be very selective about what you get you know??

Maybe that’s why I don’t buy things that have a marketing campaign behind them…. Is that a bad thing??? Maybe I just enjoy the process of finding something of equal or higher quality at a much lower price than the highly marketed item…

My mouth is still numb from my dentist visit, and all I want is to gnaw on some candy….. it’s lifestyle adjustment time…….. no more sodas, candy, sweets, etc…. I’m going to be cranky for the next month or so while I get this sugar out of my system… I’m sure I’ll feel better, but I think this whole detox period is going to suck…

~C

CD of the moment: Jamiroquai - "Dynamite"