Last week, I had to be in a parade. I have
managed to make it to the ripe old age of forty-six without ever having to be in
a parade, and now my record of forty-six parade-free years has been obliterated.
I did not wish to be involved in a spectacle. I did not wish to be looked at by
anyone. I did not wish to be accosted by marauding hordes of tiny, grubby
children digging their clammy hands into my bag for candy. I did not wish to
smile and wave. But I did all of these things, for in the end there was really
no choice but to just embrace it. People are cheering and waving and you can’t
just ignore them and be the crabby one and let your fellow parade-mates down. It
wasn’t so bad. It was over fairly
quickly, and I got a tee shirt out of it. I don’t think anyone looked at me
that closely. But if I have to do it again next year, I’m wearing a disguise.
A number of years ago, Mr. Typist and I decided
that rather than buying each other presents on holidays or anniversaries, we
would buy something together to collectively improve our lot in life. We slowly
started upgrading to new furniture, getting rid of the shabby college-dorm,
mismatched particle-board stuff and replacing with it a reasonable facsimile of
grown-up, matching furniture. But the one remaining holdout to an upgrade has
been our bedroom dresser. It was already well-used when a friend of a friend
donated it to me over fifteen years ago, and it has slowly gotten more buckled
and sad-looking over the years. Plus, it’s a light blond wood, and everything
else we have is now a dark cherry wood. It was our anniversary last week, and so
when Mr. Typist proposed a weekend get-away, I countered-proposed that we go
shopping for a new dresser. And I won!
We nipped off to the mall, where it was extremely slim dresser pickin’s. To the
point that it was a little scary. And then I realized that’s why I never
upgraded the dresser. Furniture shopping is a pain, selections are uber-limited,
and Good Lord, furniture is expensive.
My only criteria for the new dresser was that it be cherry wood or at least
faux-cherry wood, and that it have knobs. That was it. And there was exactly
one dresser in all of the stores that met those humble standards. I knew that I
was at the tail end of my frustration tolerance, so I got a sales person, pointed
to the one I wanted, ran the card, and
it was done. Bam! Next week our new dresser will be delivered, and it will
probably get us through the next thirty years.
I went to the dentist a few weeks ago for a
standard cleaning, and it was a disaster. I was in so much pain that the poor hygienist
was not able to get more than ten percent into the cleaning before the whole
operation was scrapped. I have to go back this week. They are going to full-on
numb my entire right side with injections of anesthesia, clean my teeth, and
fill some cavities. I know that makes me sound both like a wimp, and like I
never brush my teeth, but I swear I am not a bad-tooth-taker-care-of! I do all the
standard stuff you’re supposed to do; I even floss, but I also grind my teeth a
lot, and as results, I have…problems. And because it’s painful to go the
dentist, I put off going for way longer than I should, thereby creating a cycle
of pain=avoidance=more pain. My dentist office folks are all very nice, but I
see them giving meaningful looks to each other over the chair when they think I’m
not looking. Meaningful looks that say, “She’s mentally fragile. We
need to remember our de-escalation plan and proceed carefully and calmly.”
I don’t have any amusing Buddy stories for you
this week. He’s been semi-behaving himself, although Mr. Typist just yelled at
him from the kitchen, so I think he may have made off with our dinner salmon. I
supposed I better go scope out the sitch, so until next week, take care of
those teeth and don’t stumble into any parades!
--Kristen McHenry
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