"Bok Choy" anyone?

Yesterday for lunch I enjoyed my favorite Chinese dish, Sesame Chicken over brown rice. It was fabulous, I savored every bite.

Ahhhh, the broccoli was al dente...

the chicken was all white meat...

it was cooked to perfection...

the sauce sweet & tangy...

it was tasty…

it was yummy…

it was delicious!!!

And then to complete the epicurean experience I opened my fortune cookie. Hmmm, I thought its missing…perhaps it was caught in the cellophane wrapper…no, perhaps tucked into one of the cookie folds…no. There was no fortune! Wow I thought, am I unfortunate? But then G wisely pointed out that the real issue is that I'll never learn to speak Chinese without the fortune in the cookie to teach me. So true I thought, how am I to learn Chinese without those translations on the reverse side? Looking at the wrapper again, hoping that the small strip of paper would appear, I noticed the printing clearly stated “Fortune Cookie”, well, I thought indignantly, that was false advertising. Its bad enough that the dessert they offer at the conclusion of every meal is a stale dry folded up crepe thing, but no fortune, unconscionable!

Oh well, I figured I’d expended enough energy on that topic, so I turned my attention back to work and tried to focus on a very complex excel spreadsheet. Wouldn’t you know it, there was a piece of broccoli stuck in between my back molars, how annoying! Instead of getting out the floss I stuck a piece of gum into my mouth thinking that chewing it would dislodge the offensive remnant without disrupting my work. After about the fifth chew there was a “POP!” Rats I thought, what was that. Then I felt a hard something in my mouth, so I spit it out and realized that my rear crown had come off. What a pain (in the tooth)! Of course I picked up the phone and called my dentist right then and made an appointment to have it glued back into place. I hung up and sighed, I’m all set, with a 10:00 AM appointment the next morning, everything will be rendered as good as new!

Later on as I slaved over that unbalanced budget I remembered I’d bought some fabulous T-bone steaks for dinner. How was I going to chew a luscious steak with no tooth, and it was a tad sensitive to boot. I looked at the clock, there was only another 10 minutes remaining before I usually left for the day, so at the set time I left, drove to a local drug store to pick up a package of temporary dental glue and then found my way home. Once home I read the directions, they stated that you’re not to eat on it for at least one hour. Mom told me not to worry, we wouldn’t be eating for at least an hour, and she encouraged me to go glue it on.

So upstairs and into the bathroom I went to re-crown myself. I followed the directions,

remove as much of old glue from crown as possible…okay…

clean crown…okay…

dry crown…okay…

wash tooth & leave wet…okay…

Take a small amount of glue and brush onto the underside of the crown….okay…

Rewet tooth…okay…

Put crown into place….okay…

AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to pass out on the floor, the pain was instantaneously excruciating!!! The glue must have hit some exposed nerve and I was seeing stars! It was all I could do to drag myself to my room and lie down on my bed. The whole side of my face was throbbing at this point. I laid there for what seemed an eternity, but looking at the clock it was only ten minutes later that the pain subsided. So I got up changed out of my work clothes, went downstairs and after the hour was up we sat down to beautifully grilled burnt offerings. Unfortunately I only half heartedly enjoyed it, because the mere thought of this thing popping off again made me cringe. Thankfully I made it through dinner and the evening, and went to bed that night with no other tooth related issues.

This morning I showered, dressed and drove off to the dentist. They just moved into a new facility a few months ago and when I walked in I was really impressed! The place looked fabulous, and they told me that they’d retained an interior decorator, who specialized in dental offices. I thought how strange, someone really specializes in this? Go figure.

Anyway once in the chair, the dentist pops off the crown with ease and commented that the glue was pretty weak. All I could think of was the pain I’d experienced last night with this weak glue and started to sweat at the thought of what the strong glue was going do to me. My fears were assuaged, because once he smeared the cement on and put the cap back in place I suffered no ill affects and was good to go. Or so I thought, while I was still laying captive in the chair the dentist reminded me that I needed to replace a cracked crown (on the other side) and have another tooth fitted with one as well. Rats, I was having no problem with those and my motto is "if it ain't broke don't fix it," but he was so persuasive that by the end of the appointment he’d scheduled me for two new crowns and a night guard. I figured at the price these crowns were going to cost me I’d be grinding my teeth at night and a night guard should at least halt any further tooth degradation. Then they gave me the estimate for the out of pocket amount and I almost cried. $1,500! Wow, and what thought ran through my mind? Well, they have to pay for that dental interior decorator somehow. LOL! Sad but true!

Oh well, I'll bet Confucius would probably advise anyone with a strong desire for Chinese food to check the cookie first, and if the fortune is missing consider something a bit less crunchy than broccoli like Italian spaghetti and meatballs.

CD