Monday, December 01, 2008

Happy Bunny

So this morning I was woken up by my darling wife snoring like a buzz saw. I nudged her and told her to stop. She sounded pissed, she always does when I wake her to get her to stop snoring.

Within thirty seconds a low dull ache settled into my wisdom tooth. That’s going to be there until I get to sleep tonight, interspersed with moments of sharp intense pain. I won’t be getting back to sleep.

From the hallway outside our bedroom door I hear a low dripping sound. It’s rained here for the past three days and it appears the leak in the roof that Frank and I ‘fixed’ didn’t stay fixed. Maybe it’s a good thing I woke up, I’ll have to empty the bucket catching the drips soon.

A sharp pain in my tooth suddenly reminds me that I’ve got to go to the dentists today to pick up my X-Ray to take to the oral surgeon. I mean, they only charged me close to two hundred dollars to yank two teeth…I can’t expect them to swallow the cost of a single first-class stamp to mail the X-Ray to me. The poor bastards are only just managing to scrape by as it is. The Porche 911 turbo I saw in the employees only parking space was last year’s model for fuck’s sake.

I said it originally as a joke, but every time I have a run in with the American healthcare system my ‘joke’ turns out to be absolutely true. I could have flown back to England, had all my wisdom teeth removed, spent a week with my family and then flown back here for significantly less than a single doctor’s visit.

I turn onto my back as Sunny starts to snore again. I look upwards and something makes me freeze. There’s just the slightest hint of discoloration on the ceiling directly above my side of the bed. I stand up and press the back of my hand against it.

It’s slightly damp.

Well, this is just the big fat cherry on top of the fucking cake.

My tooth hurts, but I can put up with it. The roof leaking in the hallway is really annoying, but as long as it doesn’t rain too much, that can be put off for a week or two. The leaky pipe under the kitchen sink is also annoying, but not hurting anything as long as I remember to empty the bowl under the leaky joint once or twice a day.

A leak in the roof directly over my bed? That’s not something you can put off.

So I do some mental arithmetic. Last time we fixed the roof we needed one bucket of tar. This time, we’ll need at least two, so that’s at least $80…add to that a couple rolls of tar paper…

…and we arrive at a figure that means my tooth is going to be hurting for a good long while.

And people wonder why I’ve not been much of a happy bunny lately.

Oh well, at least I’m not smoking.

2 comments:

Sunny said...

Yeah- That list of "Things To Do" is growing by leaps and bounds lately isn't it, sweetie?

LOL- and BTW Sweetness- you can stop posting about my snoring anytime....You snore as well, but I don't tell the world about it- nor do I post about some of your other bad habits....

I just love you and just put up with them as your little idiosyncrasies
(That was a BIG word for a blond)instead of complaining to everyone about them.....

Kelly said...

It amuses me somewhat that you guys seem to 'bicker' on your blogs.......

As for the tooth, Paul - any chance you could get a credit card to cover the cost? Capital One gave me a card with zero credit history....only a $500 limit, but it's 0% interest and it might help you out of a bind in the short term?