Things, my blessed Pielings, things. So many of them- where to start?
Let's start with the nastiness of the tooth business, because after all, this is The House Of Many Ills, and I do so love to whine in your general direction.
Last week was a toothy week indeed. On Wednesday last, I zipped into yon Dental Practitioner for a quick fix on my temporary filling. It had started disintegrating in such a fashion as to poison my mouth with clove flavours, and that simply cannot be abided, so I had him stick his fingers in my maw and plug in a permanent filling instead. Marvellous.
This is important, and I need to say it before I tell you the next thing: he is a good dentist. I have not once in the- admittedly- twice that I've been there had to bite down on said digits because of a mis-timed drillbit or a hypodermic needle gone askance. Howthefuckever, he does have some odd habits that knock me very stoutly off of my ease, and they include such ticks as not wearing gloves or a mask, clipping my front teeth with the spinning drill as he extracts it from my mouth, and catching his little ice-pick like thing on my lip several times within the span of the appointment. Look my lovely, I'm sure you're terribly jolly and awesome and as has been said great at the important parts of your job, but Loraine will clamp down when you bust out the little flame-thrower after the seventh time you've taken enamel off the inside of her front tooth with an aimless drill.
But there were no great incidents of any great note this time, and I left mostly intact and only mumbling slightly under my breath about Steve Martin and Novacaine.
However, and I stress this to be a however of greatest import, the Thursday that followed brought a whole new level of body horror: Tooth Flavour.
My wisdom teeth were coming out under general anaesthesia.
I had been dreading this for so fucking long I had actually managed to convince myself I could Jedi mind-trick my teeth into being fine where they were. This was of course ignoring the fact that I had subconsciously taught myself to chew food using my tongue and soft palate because chewing using my back teeth resulted in spasms, seizures and usually brief periods of blacking out from pain.* But now the fateful day had come, the forms were filled in, and I had been escorted to the world's narrowest hospital bed ever to await my doom.
*Not an exaggeration.
Seriously, these beds could just about accommodate one of my illustrious butt cheeks before starting to wish to be reincarnated as an octopus the next time 'round. It was also something of an Olympian event getting all the way up on the damn thing, for as narrow as it was was it tall and inaccessible. I did get there eventually, but I'm not going to waste breath denying that success might have involved a team of people pushing from the arse-end of the Snofferol.
My first and foremost question upon landing on Mt. Hospital Bed was "Do I have to wear a hospital gown?" I, in my still Wisdom-Plus state, figured that since they were only just messing around with my teeth and weren't really cutting seriously, I should at the very least be able to keep my jeans. Alas: no. Not even a vaguely sympathetic no either, just a "here you go, you get an extra-large."
Oh fucking spiffing, thank you kindly Nurse Ratched. Of course, my indelible sense of adamantian humour shines like a beacon in a dark place, and I lighten the hearts and hopes of all within spitting distance with my merry quips about said gown. I do so despite every indication that people are actually starting to get irritated with me, and while lesser souls may have given up on their holy quests to keep spirits high in such a glum ward- ever ignoring the possibility that my manic jokes about the gown being so short as to be more of a hospital scarf may be a result of my growing anxiety over the surgery- I would never abandon a cause so callously. This prompts Nurse The Second to jaunt into the room with an xxxx-large, all helpful having heard me complain mine was "too small."
REALLY? THANK YOU SO MUCH, LADY OBSERVANT. Take your whale pyjamas and shove them drily up an unventilated orifice. It took way too much arguing for my comfort levels to convince the bloody woman that I had only been joking about the length of the fucking things, and that they fit fine. Everyone kept insisting that it was a good thing that this particular brand of hellish concentration-camp uniform fastened at the front, leaving no bum-flaps exposed to cold wind, but I disagree. All this meant in a practical sense was that my left boob kept having little fieldtrips of its own out the side of the damn thing since the straps served no purpose at all in actually keeping one's self inside of it. Eventually I just hankered down on the bed, under the blankets with my arse clenched to keep myself balanced on its stingy surface area, and kept my whole situation under wraps.
I got wheeled into the hallway to wait for the previous victim to get ferried into recovery, and to amuse myself I read the printed list of flammable items on the store cupboard door. Not as interesting as it might sound, I'll add, but there is something on there called "sojourn." I found this to be rather odd, since I understood a sojourn to be a trip of some kind, and I've never heard of its neighbours on the list- "rubbing alcohol" and "petroleum spirits"- to mean gay picnics and merry outings and such. I asked a nurse, and she informed me that Sojourn was an inhalant used to put you under, and as such actually was a trip, whether it be inadvertently so or not. This was something I liked, and I have decided that it is allowed to exist.
Not to hyper-focus, but I had some time left over after reading the cupboard door, and I discovered a label on my hospital gown sleeve with the name and number of the company that makes them, and had I not been focusing on pulling in my stomach so as not to whore over the edge of my bed, I might have remembered it so I could call with some strongly-worded suggestions. Or even just "Buttons," I'm not unreasonable.
Finally it was my turn and I got wheeled in to the theatre, where the anaesthesiologist- who had previously been not only of a rather peculiar odour but also of a malignant personality and suffering from a questionable congenital health problem that did something to his hands- was waiting with a wink. This does not comfort me, you'll be shocked to learn. The nurse tucks my arm in using my blanket, and spastic anaesthesiologist spigots my hand with the IV. At this time I realize I have a dire itch on my nose that is now inaccessible, and I smile serenely, thinking myself absurdly zen for being able to let it go. Also: faintly wondering if I'll wake up with the itch still there.
Naturally the next thing I remember is waking up, itch forgotten, but quite sure that I CANNOT FUCKING BREATHE. I am sucking in air with a force and tenacity that becomes fighter pilots and cold-war astronauts, but it's not doing the trick, and I come to the simple conclusion that I ought to scream really loudly that I CANNOT FUCKING BREATHE. The bastard surgeon and nurses assure me that I am mistaken and am in fact only disorientated from the dope-juice, and can breathe just fine, to which I would like to rebut by setting fire to their eyeballs. I fucking know the difference between not being able to get air through my throat and into my lungs, and being able to get air through my throat and into my lungs. This is the former. They put the oxygen mask over my mouth but this is fucking pointless as the problem is obviously that my throat is swollen from the fucking tube they shoved down there with as much care and finesse as they would beat a red-headed step-child, so all it serves is to make me claustrophobic to boot. Eventually, after long, long minutes of genuinely not being able to motherfucking breathe (if any medical staff are reading this), the swelling subsides and I am zoomed back into the ward with a golden lungful of air.
The doctor had looked at me so oddly when I had asked to keep my teeth before the surgery, as though it was a strange request. Luckily he remembered, and someone pressed a small pill bottle with my bloody wisdom teeth into my poor, faltering mother's hands. I promise you if she wasn't biologically programmed against it, she would have thought less of me for keeping them, too. I won't inflict the image of them on you, but I will say this: GOOD GOD. I cannot believe I was walking the fuck around with these things inside my skull. No wonder my whole head hurt- one of them was so badly eaten away, it had what my dad described as not a cavity- but a grotto.
I didn't swell up much at all really, but of course being me, I complained as much and as often as I could afterwards. My hero of a dad just kept buying me ice-lollies that helped the ache, and creamed spinach to suck down, and milkshakes... He's fucking awesome, that dude. He needs an award of some kind, he's really the absolute best. Speaking of which...
While his birthday was a couple of weeks ago, the party proper for Piepappa happened only this weekend. And boy, was it... let's say "eventful." This would not be the forum to discuss most of the events- believe me, I curse my sudden sense of misplaced propriety every bit as much as you do- but I'll skirt around the peripheries for you.
Plenty of favourite faces were there. Rorkes, Courts, Senekals, Birkenstocks and Vissers. It was bound to be blog-worthy even if it had been what might have passed for smooth sailing in these parts. But as it stands, we had a bit more meat for our supper. Verdale- of whom you shall hear a great deal more in a moment- misplaced his phone, which was very decidedly not good. I get it, I understand, that thing is to him what my laptop is to me, and were I to lose mine on a given night I would assuredly go Charlie Sheen on everyone's arses. This is a subtle way of saying that he went Charlie Sheen on everyone's arses. Cops were called, stink eyes were given, and deep grooved were paced into the hallways of Casa Birkenstock. To no avail. Other business goes down and everyone drinks more beer. I attempt lamb chops using only my front teeth. Some 30 Seconds is played, where no man seems to care which team he owes allegiance to, and the resulting anarchy sees the closest match we've ever had. I got another cat tampon, and took approximately 500 000 photos. Truly, a great night was had by one and all, except for a couple of ones and for short bursts of times at various interludes, collectively all. That's just how we roll, yo.
The next morning, there was still whiskey and beer left, and the pool still had water in it, so, you know, bird's gotta fly.
And as to this, I have this to say:
I believe very strongly in judging a book by its cover. Wouldn't you want to read this one cover-to-cover right the fuck away?
Verdale's phone was also located in the bushes after a post-party scramble by some altruistic soul in the grass- Verdale, if you're reading this, for God's sake, I don't have a number to reach you on anymore and you've gone and deleted your bloody facebook so there's no way to sexually harass you at odd hours of the morning. Also, you forgot your charger here.
And now... For The Love Of This Guy!
Pielettes, this is a very special post. Verdale, also known as Verdwaal (translation: To get lost), Vergina and Verdildo (yes, he is a very special trooper) has requested- yes, requested- a personal review of sorts. I am nothing if not an obliging sort of a bastard, so I shall review the hell out of him.
A couple of weekends ago, Vergina came to visit for a casual booze-up in the lapa out back with me and Piepappa. This was after much nagging on my part, for I hugely enjoy his company, and he had been selfishly depriving me of it for some time in favour of "work", as so many of my friends have been doing. Psh. Well he was decidedly up for some shenanigans, so he biked on down, and we stocked up on so much drink even the cashier at the liquor store raised an eyebrow. He asked me to do a post on him, and begged of me to be entirely honest, and I remind him here that he did ask for it, mwa ha ha ha and all that.
Now I am one filthy-minded and dirty-tongued bugger, and I challenge you to find anyone who has met me whilst awake who would counter this statement. I have often out-smutted dudes whose wet dreams carry VD and delight in triple and quadruple-entendre contests with my French friend Vincent via Whatsapp. If wouldn't have made Shakespeare blush it isn't worth saying, is what I believe. But Verdale... he's a different kind of grand master. Sometimes I will have said something that I knew I could have phrased better to avoid a dirty implication, and will subtly loer at him from under my eyebrows to see if he caught it only to realise he not only stopped my filth at American Pie border patrol, but has tucked a few penis jokes and ass-rape puns of his own into its knapsack. (Oh lawdy, and now that I'm in that frame of mind, I'm awfully aware of typing the word "sack.")
This would be why he is awesome. The man's well of wrongness simply has no bottom, and that is my kind of unhealthy.
He also presents as a possible time-traveller from the old days who is desperate to clue everyone in on why those days were so awesome. Let me clarify- I mean he genuinely at times seems like a Mart McFly type who who has travelled forward in time only by one generation, and now is so obsessed with his "parents"'s youth and the shit they got up to that one starts to wonder... Don't get me wrong, our parents were crazy arseholes, and I would pay good money and/or consider sexual favours in benefit of Steve Buscemi if I could just hang out with them for like one year back in the day. Every now and then, you hear that one of the people you know now as that one dude who used to live in the granny flat of our old house used to be married to Boet The Blues Muso's sister for a month, and your head asplodes all over fuck everything. Or then there's the guy called Dogballs, and the time Utana burnt her bum on the braai after having dove into the pool to retrieve the watermelon and then my dad's dad who was a Seventh Day Adventist missionary doctor had to treat her, and she was married to Dogs who is a different person from Dogballs, and the whole bunch of them used to fly little planes up to the swamps all the time where they would camp out and...
Seriously, it puts our concept of partying like Ozzy into proper context. If no one loses a pinky finger and you can't sketch your friend to worrying anatomical accuracy after the weekend is over, then it simply wasn't a party. Verdale seems misplaced in time, I think he would have fit in so perfectly with the lot back then, with their dirt bikes and simply awesome questionable life decisions, and frankly I'd like to tag along. And send Brenda an invite while I'm at it.
I will say for all the nice words I have to spare for him, the child does have a worrying affinity for flat chested stick insects, but be that on his head. I sigh a great sigh of sighness when I see decent boys wasted on the wasted. I think I need to buy him some 1940's French postcards and see his world open right up, it's truly a public service.
I have a tendency to get a bit quiet when I'm tired or unwell, and since that falls into sharp contrast to the other 90% of the time when I'm talking like someone's shoved cocaine up my arse like a suppository, people who haven't spent that much time around me worry. I think I managed to match his energy levels the first day, and many a beer died a noble death, but when he came round again this weekend he found me a subdued Snoff, which I think panicked him a bit. I am an awesome, truly inspirational actress, except for when I can't be arsed, which is what happens when I'm tired or off, so I can't manage to feign the kind of mania I usually run on. I felt bad that I couldn't match him smut-for-smut, but next time you're in town, Vergina, it be on, muthafucka.
So you want to know what I think of you, V? You're excellent. You've made my really, really short list, and believe the fuck out of me, it's not an easy list to get on to. It's got maybe five or six people on it total, and those are the bastards I'd got to the matt for. You know, for all that's worth. This is largely because people are fucking boring, or stupid, or irritating, or all three in ranges of concentration, and I have absolutely no patience for any of those things. It falls under the category of things I can't be arsed to pull out my Oscar-winning acting skills for, just ask Carla what happens when I come across people who irritate me. Well you are officially not one of those things. Huzzah. Beer and cupcakes all around.
Also, you liked the episodes of Community I showed you, which is always a good sign in my book.
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