Suck on That, DOC!

 

 

I had just graduated and felt like the cement ceiling of the universe had hit me on the head. What on earth do you do AFTER graduating if you studied something that has now become the arch nemesis of your very being?

 

So, like the rest of the bumbling idiots who just kind of wonder around after their degree, in search of part-time, temporary, contract, per-hour, non-permanent work…the die-hard rumour of Cruise Ships came up as the solution of the angels.

 

Oh 6 months away on the glorious seas of hope as you work 7 day weeks, 16 hour days and have to be eternally jolly to the obese tourists belly flopping their way through the lobbyists. Fuck you cruise shits. Fuck you. Now I know!

 

Back to the funnier side of cruise ship genocide, I applied through some totally illegit dodgy company working out of offices smaller than my dildo cupboard. First instinct? Stop right there. Leave with hands in the air, drop wallet and run as fast as possible in any other direction. But no no no, suicidal cat-curiousity-girl, let’s just go in and see…

 

A ridiculous interview about my parents’ relationship, my epiladied legs and what size tampons to use, I was the pathetic victim who paid a whoppingly large sum of money just to be waiting to be on the waiting list that gets you on the waiting list that gets you on the list. I think a mob of dead mafia gangsters runs this business of Cruise Ship Hiring with their cold dusty souls.

 

With my sick sum of moola, I must now go to the doctor for a full check up as the cruisy woozy ships take no prisoners, no ex cons, no people who’ve ever had a slight cold, a bruised arm, a breakdown or any form of any ailment EVER. They even asked me when the last time I cried was and why, just to test what kind of emotional strength I have. I wasn’t going to tell them that watching Oprah with my monthly devil often induces a deluge of salty works. I am strong like cow.

 

The night before my test, I went to my bad-influence friend to hang out. She’s the girl I blame for everything and anything that I have done wrong in my life. We drank, we ate, we got high, we watched South Park, I passed out as usual.

 

At sparrow’s fart the next day, I arrived sprightly for my full check up, grateful to not be a cigarette smoker, morbidly obese or Chinese, I was absolutely confident in my health, wealth and happiness. In the queue, the lovely secretary tart asked me to piss-in-a-cup ready for my inthpection. Squat, Aim, FIRE!

 

The white coat woman looked like a family-sized suitcase that was desperate to hold in a 4 storey house under her blouse – an eruption was imminent. She beckoned me in, wearing a lipstick colour that only attractive people should experiment with as a joke at a Halloween party. Perhaps she is a temping nurse? Or the slower mentally frozen sister of a doctor? No, this is it, this woman who looks like she has the qualification of a squirrel is going to be fiddling with my bits.

 

As I walked through the doorway, my peripherals picked up feint writing in the distance, ‘We test for infection, illness, acidity and drugs’. Ok! Cool! I am good with all of those, I have paid my large sum of money to be on the waiting waiting-list list and I am healthy! Yeah!

 

Oh.

 

Oh dear. Is weed a drug? Is marijuana, grass, pot, cannabis a DRUG??

Ho – Lee – Shit! Holy shit fucker!! Oh my Jihad! WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!???

 

I had walked in looking and feeling fantastic. I felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast in her trip to town, greeting everyone and singing, with my trousers accidentally tucked into my panties. As I digested the information on the distant sign, I had to act faster than President George BJ Bush on 9/11.

 

As she told me to have a seat, I burst into tears. ‘I have to tell you something, I really don’t know what to do *sob*…last night *gasp*… I went to a friends party *gulp* …and my friend was smoking a rolled tobacco cigarette and I don’t usually smoke cigarettes, but I felt like I was under pressure. *Close eyes so tears can fall hard and fast* …P..P..Peer pressure can be so difficult sometimes, especially at my age. So I took a few drags and…and…’

 

She got up off her chair, a minor workout for our house-boat lardlady. She put her arms around me, offering me some water and comforting me.

 

‘And…and…a few minutes after I’d had a few drags, I started feeling so sick *sniff* and I had to lie down in my friend’s room *swallow* and I really don’t know what happened, I started vomitting and I was sooo dizzy. *Short crying breaths* I think, I think someone spike…*breakdown in tears* …spiked the cigarette!! I didn’t knoooow waaaaaaa, I didn’t *choke* know!!!’

 

The woman’s shaven moustache shadow was now right in my face and I was converting all of my hysterical laughing energy into wailing tears. With my head in my hands, sobbing snot, hiccough-breathing, the woman starts rubbing my back saying, ‘It’s ok, shhh, it’s ok…’ She continued with, ‘it definitely sounds like someone spiked the cigarette. You poor thing, thank god you’re ok. You’re very lucky, you’re ok, but I hope you’ve learnt for next time.’ Wiping my face with my sleeve, I nodded and agreed to everything she said with a poor-me puppy-look.

 

Then she told me she was going to get my test results and that I must just breathe and relax and that she’s sure everything will be fine.

 

She came back in, trying to position her double-decker arse on the desk in front of me to create a ‘personal’ vibe. ‘The test has come back positive with dagga. Now, it’s come back with quite a strong sign of it which means that the cigarette must have been laced heavily with it. We’re very lucky it’s not a harder, more addictive substance.’

 

I started crying again, ‘Oh my god! I’ve never even touched a drug in my life. What must I do? How long will it take to be out my system?’

 

She looked at me, with tiny eyes that were somewhere on top of her base-caked chunky cheeks, ‘It’s ok. It’s our little secret.’ She smiled and marked off a big NEGATIVE to the drugs section on my form and I was fitted with an immaculate bill of health. Then I realised that this woman may be large, but she was beautiful and stunningly voluptuous, she was perfectly proportionate and glowed with goodness and warmth and kindness, like she was exactly who you’d want your kids going to Nursery School with. She was an angel, with wings and a halo and the tummy of a cherub’s mommy. I will call her Angela and dedicate my fluffy pillow of happiness to her. I love you Angela!

 

She gave me a big hug, where my hands got lost in the folds of her glorious angel fat. As she said goodbye, she looked at me and told me what a wonderful young woman I was and that I should really think about the type of people I was hanging out with.

 

I nodded sniffling and smiling at her sweet face of love, ‘You just never know who you can trust these days.’

 

Aim. Shoot. Score.

FREE ADULT PRAWN!

ADULT PRAWN ARE DYING! And they are dying for us to free them, free them from their shackled stripper lives having to feed dozens and dozens of child prawn! How can you just watch them strip to their pinky white bare flesh on the those cheap free download sites. HOW?! They are dying for us to log in our private information and our bank details and our sexual preferences and rub ourselves in salty walty fish sauce while they peel their crusty skin off layer by layer…so that we can see their dirty cracks.

STOP THIS ABUSE! STOP THIS ABUSE! No body, no land body, no air body, no sea body, NO BODY should have to be a victim of unconsenting PRAWN.

I just wanted a little glimpse at some fish! And I googled it and what did I find! PRAWN! Everywhere! PRAWN PRAWN PRAWN! Prawn by the kilogram, Prawn by the bucket load! Prawn specials, Prawn Platters! Prawn combos and Prawn on Prawn sites! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WORLD WITH SO MUCH PRAWN!

Please please free adult prawn from this terrible future of slavery in the online prawn industry. These prawns are being abused! STOP ABUSING FREE ADULT PRAWN! Stop it! They are just crusty asians like their crabby brothers. How would you like to be exploited, even tongue licked by sick sick viewers in the middle of the night who stare at their screens waiting for the download to complete their full length videos of adult prawn.

Let me just tell you something mister prawnographer addict! If you so much as look at one child prawn, you will die! DIE DIE DIE! Child prawn should be eaten not stripped! You’re a SHRIMP PIMP!

Everybody together: FREE ADULT PRAWN FREE ADULT PRAWN!!!

Amen.

Colonic Hydrolic

Being a female in the mod con world of sex drugs and parole, usually always come with one common universally unifying factor, excess weight and the social demise that comes with it.

 

In this big world, green is the new Nike, hurricanes virtually host the weather report; people are cold and hungry and life is cruel; a time when we need to come together to save the planet and work the land and preserve our Earth…and the most important thing, above all else, is being skinny. Soooo skinny that you can post myself, and Postman Pat can sling you over his shoulder with his happy cat.

 

I am just about to reach my quarter-life crisis birthday, if, of course, I live to…(hold on 24 x 4… um…I’ll get there…20 x 4 is 80, and then 4 x 4 is 16…so 80 plus 16 is…94! Right 94!) …if I live to 94, unless of course, I eat myself into a shallow grave full of pudding or if I just quit eating altogether and pray to Gandhi Wandhi and rot away in the pits of Manic Obsessive Obese Hell!

 

In this story, I was still in pre twenties and I had just discovered the unbearable life of quitting eating. I thought, well, if I want to be patted and posted by Patman Post, then I must do it cold turkey and eat nothing but cold turkey. It is a small price to pay for the ability to fly like paper in the wind – unlike those curvy girls. Oh no, those curvy girls with real female bodies who enjoy mud wrestling and sumo sandwiches, no no no, they will die lonely and fat and with warts on their nose, because FAT = WITCH. ‘Fat witch die, fat witch die’ they shouted to Joan of Arc’s obese sister as her blubber boiled and they all enjoyed a lovely roast after the celebrations.

 

Basically, I pretty much royally fucked my body up in a couple of weeks of eating only cold turkey and cucumber. My insides were screaming, ‘Give me deep fried chicken NOW!! I want deep fried battery-grown, leg-growing-from-beak, suicidal crumby chicken! NOW!’

 

My digestive system had quit on me. It had out rightly refused to carry on working. The previously functioning sewerage system was now…out of order. With a broken removal van, the whole city of my body started wasting away. Acne that could be mistaken for puss-filled bubble wrap, limbs so weak I could barely lift 2 hamburgers. Oh woe is me! I am worried that this is the very end of my little life. Oh daddy of mine, if the cranes cannot life me, I am happy for you to set fire to me right here and burn me. Die, Fat Witch Die.

 

He took me straight to his friend the Colonic Hydrotherapist. This is one of the very special professions where someone has actively chosen this as a career, gone to university and then specialised in the art of poo-pumping and opened their very own practise to allow for many people of all shapes and buttocks to come and release their foul beast bowel feast.

 

It began. ‘Make yourself comfortable’. No. No I can’t. You’re about to drive straight into a one-way only alley and I’m not sure I’m entirely happy about this. What about we go for dinner and then to a movie, get to know each other a little and we’ll go from there? How does that sound? No? Alright. I’ll try it your way.

 

A kind warning of, ‘It might be a little cold’ and *cough*, we’re in! OH MY GOD! I think you accidentally rammed an apple into my don’t-look-me-in-the-eye eye, TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUUUUUTT!!! Mommmmmmmy. Somebody call my mommmy. I want to go back to the warm place of womb where I was safe and nobody could shovel me with a cold, metal rod!! Waaaaa!

 

Great, how lovely, the kind doctor decided to make small talk while going about her business, or rather while doing my business for me. She started, ‘Oh you should meet my son, he’s visiting for the week! He’s 6 foot and has just graduated. You guys would get on so well!’ Cool. I’m so in, but talking about it right now? Is that entirely necessary? ‘I know! Could I give him your number and you could show him around?’ Totally! I’d love to, whatever you say, just stop waving your cold, flagless stick around in me! I agreed to a blind date while a woman was rearranging my organs.

 

For a very quick specialised medical lesson, this simple and effective procedure works like this. Water is flushed in, gunk is pulled out. Lovely to think about, no? And if you’re very lucky, some doctors may have see-through tubes so you can see your codswallop pass by on its own little waterslide. Very fancy doctors may even wrap Christmas lights around the tube to give your dingleberries a sense of celebration at it exits. A celebration!! Hoo-ha!

 

After finally accepting what I was going through, I calmed down, made jokes at the tord’s various appearances and almost starting to enjoy the whole excavation. Then. Blackout! What’s going on! What’s happening! Are we under attack? Oh my god! There’s something stuck in me! Oh wait, that was there before. Somebody put the lights back on!! The lovely lady tsk’ed and said, ‘The switch keeps tripping, let me just go and flip it back on, I’ll be back in a jif’. Ooohhh OK. I’ll just wait here? In the dark, like this. And off she went. There I lay in the pitch-black, facing the wall, back to the door with a large transparent glow-in-the-dark tube that wasn’t planning on letting go anytime soon.

 

Like the early days of stop motion animation, where each frame tells a story in itself, the following happened.  

 

A small breeze. The door was opened. She must be back. 

‘Mom, are you here?’ I heard.

Oh cheese and rice and cod and brother hairy, save me! There’s someone else here. Don’t move. He can’t see anything, but the glowing tube. Don’t…

Light’s On!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKK!!! Fuck fuck fuck fuckity quack fuck! Don’t breathe. Don’t turn around.

It was as if the underworld had grabbed me and was tugging me down with its razor-laced blood-dripping claws, one limb at a time.

‘Oh, sorry Sir’, the voice said.

I blocked my throat and in my closest and deepest Mr. Bean impression I mumbled, ‘It’s ok!’

 

For moments, I lay ready to be buried, quite literally having died from mortification. She returned apologising for her delay, but her son is visiting and had popped by to say hi. “Oh really, that’s great!’ I forced. She pulled the pipes out and let me get dressed, chatting away about how she was so excited for her son to meet me.  

 

I was shuddering with thoughts of him first seeing the luminous tunnel attached to my derriere, then to the lights coming on to a full, unforgiving back-view to him calling me Sir!!! Sir?! What!? I want a dark well to plummet down. We walked out her office, she was describing her findings in acute detail and tell me when I should come for my next appointment. I was still shaking and couldn’t concentrate on anything, while digging in my bag for my car keys. Found them! Then, the little professional stool sucker lady put her arm around my shoulder, as she shouted to the gorgeous man sitting on the waiting chair.

 

“Mark! This is the girl I was just telling you about!”

 

Dying. Dying. Dead.

 

 

 

 

Fun at the HIV Clinic

 

Give me an H (H) Give me an I (I) Give me a V (V)! What does that give you? EITCH-AY-VEE! And what does that give you? AIDS! Well, now, that’s debatable!

 

I suffer from an acute case of political incorrectness. In a court of law, with my hand on the first Harry Potter book, I solemnly swear, ‘I am a good person, but I do like to laugh. In or out of a propriate. Amen. Oh and Voldemort is a demon in the bedroom.’

 

It was a happy day. The birds had shut up from their incessant wrist-slitting chirping and I hadn’t gotten up to pee all night. Not even once. Oh yes, it was a day of miracles!

 

I had just fallen in love; you could even still see the bruises on my knees. I jumped out of bed after 17 snoozes, ate breakfast while standing on the scale and threw on my very sexy gym clothes, black baggies and an old t-shirt donated by the winner of The Biggest loser. Let’s go let’s go let’s go! I’m a gym girl, yes I am, woo! Go team! SHUTUP INNER VOICE!

 

Jogging at a walking pace, fantasizing about my new man, my brain started sawing its way out and hitchhiked to a very very dark place. I wonder if he’s been tested. Have I been tested? When was the last time I was tested? Have I been with anyone since then? Should I be worried? Why did Bambi’s mom have to die? Bambi is probably dead by now or the oldest deer in the world! I should get tested again. I can go next week. But what if I’m positive, I should go sooner, I… And with that last thought, DOOF, missed a step, head first onto the handlebars. I gotta go!

 

Every time I’ve taken a friend to get tested, I’d volunteer to go as well because I’d had unprotected sex with 593 people, men, women and hermaphrodites (slight exaggeration).

 

Nerves had kicked in and built a nest in my wind pipe as I walked into the clinic. YAY! Free condoms! Grab grab grab. And they aren’t even the ones that the Government accidentally stapled. After trying to transfer my rubber acquisitions from one hand to the other so that I could put my name down, the receptionist gave me a box. I said my name was Jeremy. A girl named Jeremy, too obviously a lie?

 

I waited for half an hour before I went even though there wasn’t anyone else there. I think they wanted to give me the allusion of busy-ness. I’m fooled ya’all, you got me, you’re busy!

 

I was called in, it felt like the principal calling me personally over the intercom announcing that my dad had come to fetch for my colon cleanse.

 

The young consultant started with quick questions, ‘Have you been tested before bla bla bla, how often do you have sex bla bla bla, what’s your favourite position bla bla bla’, the usual makes-you-really-think oral examination. Then there was a quick prick and all the formalities were out the way. 15 minutes until the results are out. Just enough time for 2 cigarettes. But I don’t smoke. Enough time to go through every possible outcome and scenario, have an anxiety attack and conceive 15 children.

 

I got up to leave the little room and wait outside. The chipper chap stopped me, asking me what I did for a living. I told him. OH! His eyes glowing at the prospect of me snatching him from out of his pre-HIV-test-consultancy per-hour job and saving him! ‘I’d like you to read something’ he said. WHAT?! I just had a fucking needle in me testing me for a life-threatening disease, you are stealing my 15 minutes of WHAT-IF time and you want me to reeeead something?!! Do you know where we are?!! Do you know what your job is?!! Do you know how many calories are in a kilogram and you want me to reeead something??

 

I managed to get out, ‘Er, W-w-w-hat is it?’

He smirked, ‘It’s a play I’ve written. I’m looking for a producer. Can you read it and see if you like it?’

‘What’s it about?’ I asked.

‘It’s a Zimbabwean musical!!’

‘Oh. Um. Could I perhaps read it when I come back, after I’ve got my results?’

Despondently he said, ‘Ok lady! Come back in 10 minutes’

 

I’d lost 5 minutes of my feel-sorry-for-myself time. I walked slowly to the bathroom. I tried really hard to look into the mirror and find something deeper, more meaningful. Nah, what the hell! I wonder what they have in the vending machine. A minute had passed in what seemed like a millennium-long, scream-filled space/time vacuum. I was twitching and cold, I thought I had rigor mortis.

 

Finally! Time to go back. Oh my whatever-is-the-right-religion’s God. Help me. Protect me. Let things be ok. If I’m positive, I’ll be a pioneer of the Virus, I’ll motivate school kids and college students, I’ll climb Everest and show how you can be positive being positive. And dear holiness guy, if I’m negative, I’ll never ever ever have sex again!

 

I walked in and the guy is sitting at his little desk talking with his back to me. And then I realised, HE WAS ON HIS PHONE! He was llaaauughinng and having a good time while the future of my bodily planet was in his hands!! EXCUUUSE ME?! He looked at me and gave me the hand! He gave me the hand! Wait, I’m busy it said. Wait, I’m talking to my fried on my phone and we’re having fun!! Oh yes, yes yes yes, I know your results but I’m not going to tell you because YOU didn’t read my Zimbabwean musical! So now you can wait! That’s what THE HAND was saying! I need to know my results!! Just tell me! Just tell me!! And get off your $%^P(*^ phone!!!

He told his friend to hold and then he looked at me and said, ‘You’re fine’ and carried on with his call!! ‘You’re fine’ THAT’S IT! That’s all I get? No hug, no congratulations, no use a condom, no nothing? I stood there unearthed as he reached into the draw with one hand and waved the tube in my face so I could see for myself.

 

Ok, thanks. Thanks nice man who has really made this a fantastical experience for me. Fun fun fun at the HIV clinic. Come on everybody, come and have fun with Bozo who’s on the phone and has written an international bestselling Zimbo singalong! Come on! Free tests, get your free tests today! Party tiiiiime!

 

I motioned to the door, forgetting the hard-arse in me who would have usually erupted at the incident, but considering the sensitivity of this particular issue, I was genuinely shaking with nervous laughter. Then, of all unacceptable things to say and do, Bozo, the clown consultant, tapped me on the shoulder waving some paper in my face, ‘So, are you going to read this?’ Am I going to read it? AM I GOING TO READ IT!? I nodded, thinking what a wonderful firestarter it would make when I burn down his devil-ridden soul! I snatched it and left the office snarling.

 

There was now quite an impressive sized queue at the front desk. I walked toward the exit, head held high, desperate to get to the car.  The receptionist after shouted at me, ‘Jeremy! You forgot this!’ I turned around and saw her grinning at me waving something in her hand. And that very moment, it felt like I had farted while making an announcement at school assembly. I stopped. I looked at her. I looked at everyone now glaring at me. And with one quick move, I stormed back toward her, grabbed my box of free condoms and left!

 

Ask a Stupid Question…Get a Seat in Hell

I was in heat that made my boobs slap together like wet, golden cymbals. I was part of a film crew ‘on location’ far from home. It had already been a horrendous waking nightmare of car accidents, injuries, hurricanes and the drunk gay stand-in humping the hot nanny in the pool of our very motelish hotel. Oh it had been an adventure alright.

 

My job? Well, I’d had a few. The first AD had a bit of a thing for me and so kept making sure that when one contract ended, I had a new one…nearer him. Oy Vey as the Joo-ish people say, Oy Vey indeed.

My job on this tit-drippingly hot day, Cast Coordination. Oh the joys! Oh the bountiful pleasures of coordinating 400 extras, NONE of which who had the decency to ever learn Great Britannia’s mother tongue. I mean, so what, so you can’t afford an education, I mean, I know you can barely pay for food or shelter in your should-be-illegal-to-live-in-these-conditions squatter camps, but for God’s sake, have a little decency, learn the way of the Brits goddamit. I mean, why on earth should I, privileged, educated, not-ever-disadvantaged, why should I learn your language? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense, you are so spoilt. I spit, spoilt. Oh, to be a flagrant vagrant…!

 

So, there I was, eloquent and well-dressed and there they were, all 400 of them, in torn old clothes (excellent job wardrobe department), thirsty, tired and very poor, working a 16-hour day to earn a pathetically small amount of money. Pathetic, really. The only reason the film crew had chosen this spot in the depths of Africa was because of the cheap labor and to have sex with monkeys. Um, the latter is not 100% true. So, my job was to get all of their details: height, shirt, trouser and shoe sizes.  Easy enough. I also wanted to keep them in high spirits through the tedious work, or rather, keep high spirits in them. So, I had a secret stash of cheaper-than-free vodka. Poison, I’m sure, but wondrously effective in causing acid-like hallucinations to make the time go by. On our breaks, we laughed as they taught me their African language and I forgot the horrid torrid weather for a while.

 

The sun was violent with its laser heat by midday, I thought my skin itself was going to clamber off my body and go and bathe in the marsh mirage with the elephantoms.  Hot hot hot. Blisters started emerging on my lips, a very effective Botox replacement! Half my nose scraped off, burnt and bleeding. Cheaper than plastic surgery! My tongue and throat were like sandpaper trying to make a fire in my mouth. HOT!! And my pale complexion reddened minute by minute, damaged and ageing from the cruel rule of the African sun! You’re a bully, sun! A pimple-faced bully! I was HOT! And my African counterparts? Laughing, dancing, stripping and unconsciously tipsy with a perfectly-even lineless tan! Why God! WHY ME!? Why do I get burnt with uneven bikini lines and blistery lips. WHY?! Oh. Wait. Um. Oh. Right. I remember. Nevermind. All’s fair. Forget it. Sorry to bother! Love to your wife!

 

I was about over half way in the queue, and pretty pooped. So pooped in fact, I was doing an impressive would-be-foxtrot trying to stand up straight. My frustration levels had gone higher than Willy Wonka’s elevator. I could only communicate in violent hand gestures and a very broken combination of their must-not-be-named language and mine. Directly translated, I was saying, ‘How long is your weight? How tall are your feet? How much is your shortness? How big is your bodytop?’ END IT! END IT ALL. 1, 6, 19, 54…how many people to go? Need a drink. Need a rub. Need a good shag. Oh wait, I just had one. Sorry, time juggled.

Typically, as a consumer of the dialect of Her Highness, when trying to speak another language, my tone may sound like,’ I’M TALKING YOUR $%^&* LANGUAGE! ARE YOU $%^&*%$ HAPPY NOW!!? ARE YOU! YOU DIRTY DEAD DILDO! DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND ME YOU IDIOT!!?’ Yes, it may come across as arrogance, perhaps, but the truth is, I’m just very ashamed that I can’t communicate in any other way, at all. AT ALL!

 

I was racing through the queue now, if I finished in time I could go and play pool with the sexy French cameramen who could speak English. Who’s next? A man was pushed forward in a wheelchair. I greeted him, trying very hard to focus on the task and not show any sympathy or acknowledgement, trying to treat him normally, making him feel normal. Oh the pitiful human race. What has television taught you. NOTHING!

 

I spoke my unforgiveable samples of his language asking the questions which I had almost perfected. I asked him, ‘How tall are you?’ He shook his head. Of course, he was in a wheelchair, it didn’t matter. Next question! Don’t show emotion. Think French man fondling. Just act normal. Treat him the same, ‘What size shoe are you?’ No reply. Deep breath. Asking again, now with hand gestures, ‘WHAT (gesturing with shoulders that I’m asking a question) SIZE (putting hands together as if measuring a fish) SHOE (lifting up my foot) are YOU? (pointing to him)? No reply. Feeling my blood boiling to vapor and my heart rate matching the Hulk doing a cardio workout, I looked to the guy who had been pushing him. ‘WHAT SIZE SHOE IS HE!!!!??? ASK HIM.’ The pusher stared at me blankly. ‘SHOEEE SIIIZE. WHAT? SHOE? HELLOO? DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND ME?!’ Louder now, ‘HOW BIG ARE YOU FEET?!!”

 

Then. With a horrified sadness, as if Oprah had called me personally to tell me that she had put all the weight back on. The old man in the wheelchair shook his head, looking down. I followed his eye line. My heart atrophied. The heat had frozen around us. The tiny hairs on my lip bleached themselves. I felt a torrent of vomit surge upwards looking for an exit wound. As I looked down, I saw that this quiet, honest and simple man…was an amputee.

 

Ring Ring, Ring Ring

 

‘Yes, Hello’?

 

‘Hello ma’am, Front Desk here. Congratulations! Your place in hell has just been confirmed!’

 

MAN WITHOUT A CAUSE

I have a funny kind of bad luck with all sorts of medical practitioners, ones that prod genitals, bums, ears, but this one was a mouth-prodder of the dentistry kind.

 

I have always loved dentists; my dentist for the last forever has been the same cuddly, balding, baby-powder smelling, sweet sweet huggable man. The last time I went to him, though, he was a bit distracted and aged and didn’t really do anything and so my lifelong attachment to him was severed.

Then, a few days before a trip overseas, the toothache fairy damned me and my very soul! The she-devil fairy cursed the 4 corners of my mandibled hole! With no over exaggerated description, I was in clear and present pain.

 

Near my house, having driven past it for almost 10 years now, is a dental surgery, an ‘In case of emergency 24-hour dentist’ and I was leaving in 2 days time. This was indeedy emergency time and it seemed like a lovely house on the outside and so I phoned and booked barely able to swallow my own saliva.

 

I arrived clock-perfectly, knowing that without fail, every practicer of medicine around the expanding universe, runs late, unless they don’t have other clients because they are so awful. He had another client and ran late, I was relieved.

 

Then it started, the chamber of horrors worse-than-a-ghost-tour-in-a-cemetery. Makes me gag just thinking about it. I followed him into his orifice-like-office. An old piece of material hung over the doorframe so as not to close the door and keep fresh air in, but right on the otherwise of this fabric, was the highway. Incredibly fresh.

 

As I sat in his chair I got a vivid and appalling view of thick dust glistening in the sunlight of the window-door thing and even more clearly, from under the chairlight. I should mention that my last trip to a dentist other than my old out-of-it man was in London, at a high-end highly-technologically advanced practice with a warm and intuitive man who just knew exactly what was wrong and why. I was now in a dentist chair made somewhere in the days when the Bible was first published.

 

I wish you could see my face while writing and remembering this: my nose is curled up and my eyes frowning with a stupid grin on my face, it’s like looking at a severed arm with maggots crawling on it and a man eating the maggots.

 

Also, I am a friendly person. Always. It’s a bad bad habit and has got me into trouble. And so even when I am slightly quiet or nervous or contemplative, I am still nice and do my best to make someone else comfortable. So I really was doing my level best not to show my shock at the state of the place.

 

Sitting in the chair I see paint-worn walls and weird memo’s stuck all over the place, not the usual certificated and accoladed wall one usually sees in the medicine profession. At least put up a Grade 4 Hockey trophy, anything! Anything to show me you excel at something! There was nothing, nothing but his kids’ pictures – sweet – but not what I wanted from a man who is about to touch my shallow insides. Still I forgave it, kept me gentle natural smile and waited for the treatment, while grimacing inside.

 

He told me to lie back and open my mouth, comforting – words I appreciate from both my boyfriend and a professional mouth person. He didn’t ask me what was wrong, that should have been my first warning sign. No, actually, the dangling fabric should have been my first warning sign. That should have been my tenth.

 

Jingles of metal pieces touching broke the silence and things seemed normal again. I have a firm belief that dentists and doctors alike should always ‘walk through’ what they’re doing, step by step or at least ask the patient if they’d like them to. Being that vulnerable to a stranger’s prods welcomes comforting imformation. With this man, not a word! Not a powerpoint presentation, not a little jig and not the slightest mention of any kind of brief explanation, NUH-THING!

 

He started dabbing an ice cold instrument, tooth by tooth, as he moved to the back I started wriggling a bit, knowing that the MAIN FUCKING REASON I WAS THERE WAS BECAUSE OF TOOTHACHE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said uh-uh as he got to my back molars, and moved my head to get him to stop. Then, he did it, he placed his piece of frozen cold metal onto my back tooth and I sccreeeeeeammmed, I howled in a deep otherworldy state of pain. I don’t remember ever experiencing such an awkward sharp stab that felt like it went all the way to my unconscious core! The roar ended and I was gasping for breath and some kind of redemption from almost life-threatening discomfort that he had just caused.

And him? He humphed behind me, irritated that I, the patient was not having a jolly time in his irresponsible hands. ‘Let me try again’, he had the audacity to ask. ‘Um…my teeth are very sensitive at the back’ I reacted quietly, but quickly, my animal instincts starting to kick into survival mode. Try again! Are you out of your blood-stained cowboy-pyjama filled mind!!?

 

Ah, finally, a word of wisdom. A suggestion to take an X-Ray. Good fucking idea! Now that I’ve been dangled off a cliff by the salivating teeth of starving wolves, yeah, let’s take an X-Ray!

 

Oh, what a surprise, an old X-Ray machine that can only display images, but can’t actually print them. Very clever doc! So now a patient can’t take their X-Rays with them or show them to a qualified dentist and get the appropriate work done! An uncomfortable photo-taking time, the chords of the machine got tangled and I had to bend my neck in a mangle fashion. He pointed out various things on the X-Ray that didn’t mean anything to me, he didn’t explain anything at all, just used very foreign jargon with no explanation. I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t said much since the coma-inducing backtooth stab.

 

Then. The unbelievable happened.

 

After his totally uninterpretable X-Ray demo, there was silence, his back turned to me. I was kind of angry. I was kind of irritated. I was kind of in pain. And I was kind of getting impatient. None of which I let show, or so I thought. This man, turned around and started yelling at me! He accused me of judging him and wriggling in the chair! And how could he do his job if I didn’t do mine?! Oh he was angry, oh he was mad! He shouted that my teeth will cost me R16 000 to fix (+ $2500) and that he was the only one who could do it so I have to put up with him! So what, so he didn’t have a lot of awards or certificates or that it wasn’t a fancy office (these are his words now)! So what! Why should it make a difference!

 

He ended his rant and there was silence again. Have I mentioned that I am 23? This man was at least last forties, early fifties. Not really a point, but you see the oddity of this outburst. Also, I’m a pacifier, a conflict avoider, a I’d rather you think you win than us fight about it type of person.

 

I stood up and said quietly, ‘I am a new patient of yours. It is your job as a dentist to make me feel comfortable. It is your job to ask me if I’m ok, not the other way around. I came to you for a service, of which, you have done nothing useful. You hurt me and didn’t so much as comment. It is not my job to make you feel good, competent or secure, how dare you shout at me?

 

Silence again.

 

He sat down shaking his head. Then he put his head in his hands, I wasn’t sure if he was going to grab a knife or bash my head into the cupboard. Then he spoke, again. Gently. Peacefully. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I shouted. I’m sorry I took it out on you. Please forgive’

 

WHAT THE #$(&^% was I supposed to do!

 

I was on the verge of tears, an unlikely cliff for me to be on. What had just happened!! What?! What is going on!

 

Then I, and I am so angry with myself for this, so deeply angry, asked how much I owed him for the session. I was in such a weird headspace, I just wanted to get out. He said R760! (+ $100). For what? For damaging my teeth and my little fragile heart?! Ha! And for a pathetic X-Ray that he couldn’t even print and give to me! For what?! So I paid!! I know! I paid!! I’m so mad about it! The greatest character flaw of my life so far! I paid so I could leave! ARGGGHH!!

 

The weird thing was, other than the whole insane fiesta that had just taken place, was that he said I could pay him in his office through his Paypoint with my Debit card. So I did. On the way to the airport the next day, his secretary called me asking me to pay, I laughed and told her to speak to her boss, turned my phone off and thought nothing of it again!

 

Until…today.

 

I was in the shopping mall and I saw him. We walked past each other. I knew who he was instantly and I could see he didn’t recognize me at first, but greeted me with a smile knowing he knew me from somewhere. I stood at the bottom of the escalator as he got on it. And as the stairs went up, his smile slowly faded and he turned to look at me again with a look of absolute horror and despair. Because…we both knew what he had done.