October 25, 2004

A simple gold band

I lost my wedding ring last monday afternoon. In all the fuss about the trip to the dentist, I'd forgotten about that. Fortunately, I found it again. With the cooler weather coming on, and the weight I've lost this year, my fingers are thinner and it just slipped off when I was putting something into my briefcase. A few discreet wraps of tape and that won't happen again.

I'm on my second ring because the first one wore out. I wear it constantly, except for when I'm working on my car. I've witnessed ugly things happen to people who wear rings while playing mechanic. I've no desire to personally experience them myself.

I lost the first ring too once, and then found it again. Back when Liz was in a wheelchair, we went to a restaurant and while we were sitting there I realized my ring was missing. I freaked. I had no idea when I'd last noticed it, and by the end of the meal Liz had calmed me down enough to just accept that sometimes crap like that happens.

After dinner, I helped Liz into the car then took the chair around back to load it up (we used a bike rack to carry it). I got her chair folded and secured, and for some reason I looked down and there at my feet was the ring. Major relief!

When we were first engaged, I told Liz to get whatever ring she wanted (we were living in different states at the time), and to get me a plain gold band. No engraving, no markings, just simple gold a little over 1/8" wide.

Anything bigger than that and you could do yourself damage...

I'm going to tell this story exactly like I've told it to Liz. I'm careful never to change it or embellish it, or she'd know it's bull. It's not... sorta. Or maybe it is. I've never confirmed or denied it, I just tell the story as is and let everyone make up their own mind. To this day, Liz still isn't sure if I'm pulling her leg about this.

Liz was out with a bunch of girlfriends at a bachelorette party. She wasn't driving, so I expected her to stagger through the door in the wee hours, drunk and disorderly.

A couple of my friends had come over to the house, and we weren't doing much of anything when the phone rang. It was the girls, asking us if wanted to join them at the bar for the party. Their real motivation was that even the designated drivers were hammered, and they needed rides home.

We drove over, it wasn't far, and went inside. It was kind of fun to be the only three guys partying with more than a dozen drunk women. We were having a good time, and then for reasons I'll never fathom I did the single stupidest thing I've ever done in my life.

I decided to recreate that scene in Officer and a Gentleman where Patrick Swayzie swallows an engagement ring. Of course, I didn't actually swallow it, I tucked it under my tongue before taking the drink. Of course, nobody believed that I'd actually swallowed it, and a few minutes later it miraculously reappeared on my finger, to no one's suprise.

Someone mentioned it though at the other table and soon a whole new batch of drunk ladies wanted to see it. Remember that scene?

Open mouth, stick out tongue, place ring carefully on tongue. Take looong drink and open mouth. Viola! No ring. Of course, I wasn't going to continue the scene and go hang myself in the bathroom. There's limits to what I'll do for my art.

Except that, to my horror, the damn ring somehow slipped to the back of my throat and I involuntarily swallowed it.

There's a reason we chew our food. The throat isn't all that big around, and although there's some flexibility, it's not built to deal with things like a ring of metal. The ring got stuck. I wasn't choking on it, but it was too far down to discreetly cough up. The look on my face instantly gave it away, and of course everyone knew I was bullshitting them. It became a game, where did Ted hide his ring. The women searched my mouth, my hands, my pockets, and I could have really enjoyed it all if not for the fact that I'd swallowed my freaking wedding band. I finally decided that "this too, shall pass" and instead of bringing it up, I'd swallow it down and bide my time for its reappearance. I took several large drinks and tried to work the ol' swallow magic. No joy. Not coming up, not going down.

A few minutes later, I'm outside in the parking lot with a good friend. He's holding a huge glass of water that he got from inside, even though he's convinced that I'm faking it and laughing his ass off at everyone else's reaction. He chattering away while I'm trying to redefine "productive cough". All I could think of is Liz being pissed off at me for being an idiot and the stories that the ER staff would be telling about me in the morning. Finally, in desperation I stuck my finger down my throat and managed to throw up on the hood of a Corvette.

Eureka! I gingerly pluck my ring from the puddle of yick and rinse it off with that glass of water. I put it back on my finger, poured the rest of the water on the 'vette to wash off my mess, and headed back inside. I felt stoopid, to say the least. I was amazed to find out that most of the folks thought I was full of crap when I told them what happened, even with my friend's eyewitness account. It was so confused that to this day Liz isn't certain about the actual events.

I'm not that damn stupid. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Posted by: Ted at 05:22 AM | category: Boring Stories
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October 23, 2004

True

I was bartending at a dinner theater one night for a special event. It was Secretary Appreciation Week (this was back in the early 80's), and the whole place was full to the brim with secretaries, courtesy of thankful bosses and the local Chamber of Commerce.

It was an open bar, and some of them were taking full advantage and getting pretty well lit. There were no wait staff either, so the ladies had to come to the bar to order. During an intermission, I'm hustling along trying to keep up with the orders coming fast and furious. One very drunk lady made it to the front of the bar, propped up on either side by two slightly less drunk collegues, and says loudly, "I'll have a rum and cock."

After a split-second of silence, everyone cracked up. In her foggy state, it took her a moment to realize what she'd said, and she managed to correct herself, "I mean, I'd like a rum and coke."

Still pouring and mixing as fast as I could, I said with a smile, "Make up your mind, so I know what to stir it with."

Posted by: Ted at 08:08 PM | category: Boring Stories
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October 18, 2004

Throbbing, but not in a good way

I hate breaking in a new dentist.

I had an appointment today to take care of a molar that had cracked. It was hurting a little bit occasionally, but nothing that a couple of tylenol wouldn't take care of. Last week my wife was going to see the dentist, so I had her make me an appointment while she was there. It was time to take care of this before it became a real problem.

It turns out that my regular dentist is on maternity leave, so I had to see one of her 'associates'. I'm not the best patient in the world ('baby' would be a good description), so I was already a little shook up by this revelation. Dammit, I was used to my regular dentist. The receptionist told me to take a seat, but I was too nervous to sit.

When they called my name, I could tell right away that it was going to be a bumpy ride. Like any medical professional, this guy wants to do his own x-rays and exam and then talk to me about what needs doing. I understand that, except that I'd already been through all of this with my regular dentist and we'd already decided what the plan was. But fine, whatever. I was determined to be reasonable and at least listen to what he had to say, because I certainly don't want to have him pissed off at me before he starts in with the needles and what not. So he buzzed my head with radiation and began explaining the options. I calmly let him know what we'd had planned, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear, so we waited for the films to come back.

Turns out that I was right, and the best course of action was what we'd already decided on. Step one was extracting that tooth. Cool, let's get it done.

Dentistry has made amazing progress during my lifetime. With the right dentist, "pain free" has become truth in advertising. But I still hate the shots. Maybe it's the growing up I've done, or maybe I'm tougher, or maybe the needles are sharper, but the shots don't hurt nearly as much as they used to. Doesn't matter though, because my hands go into a white-knuckle clench and my whole body gets trip-wire tense as they shoot me up.

A few minutes later, he does a few test pokes. He's got the sucky-thingee hanging out of my mouth, plus what feels like his arm elbow-deep, not to mention whatever ancient torture devices he's wielding in there, and he's asking me questions. My regular dentist has the decency to remove her hand before expecting me to answer, but this guy wants to carry on a conversation.

"You jumped. Was that pain?"

"Uuuuuuuhhhuhhhhh!"

"Pain? Or Pressure?"

"Uuuuuuuh!"

So we go for round two with the needle. Actually, we got to round three in short order, and it's still hurting like hell every time he does whatever he's doing. We play 20 questions: yes, it's pain. No, it's not just pressure. Yes, I'm numb. Yes, the tongue too. I'm telling him it's deep pain, not around the gumline, and then he mentions that there's an infection down there. Wonderful.

We give it one more try, and I almost end up on the floor when he grabs the tooth. I'm bathed in cold sweat and I've got a headache from the tension in my neck muscles, and finally I have to ask him if it would be better to take an antibiotic to knock out the infection and try again in a week or two. He agrees, and then looks me in the eye and tells me straight up:

"I'm going to give you a prescription for codeine, because you're going to be in a lot of pain when the numb wears off."

Oh. Crap.

We head out to the front desk, me on weak knees, still mopping flop sweat from my face and neck. My jaw is throbbing, and as I walk out to the waiting room there are two young kids sitting there. Both of them are staring at me wide-eyed. I knew that I hadn't been silent during our little adventure, but there's no reason these kids should be afraid of the dentist, so I smiled at them and said "Man, I hate getting my haircut!"

They laughed, which is what I was going for.

The dentist is a nice enough guy, and I'm (reasonably) sure he's competent, but he hurt me and now I don't trust the sonuvabitch. I'm a little concerned about the infection thing, I mean I shouldn't have been the first one to mention antibiotics. It seemed like a no-brainer to me, and at that moment I brought it up more in self-defense than anything.

I drove home and Liz ran to the store to get my prescriptions filled. Now I'm sitting here feeling fortunate that tomorrow is going to be a light day at work. My tooth is letting me know that it's not happy, but it's tolerable.

Buzzzzzzzzz.

Posted by: Ted at 08:59 PM | category: Boring Stories
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