Lower left six

For forty years I have denied the existence of God. Poo pood any form of deity. Laughed at the thought of an all seeing Lord who art in heaven. But no longer my children, oh no, I have seen the light! And how did this road to Damascus moment occur, kick back, and I shall explain…….
Having fallen out with our previous dentist, mainly due to the fact that she was a stroppy, and incompetent bitch, we hadn’t been to the dentist for a couple of years. You know how you hear unbelievable stories about weirdoes masquerading as doctors for years and years, even performing operation etc, well I swear our last dentist was just such a person. I suffered nothing but trouble at the hands of this dentist, and so our connections with this practice were severed. This of course threw up the problem of trying to get another one. Miss Marple, being an extremely diligent and determined woman, spent weeks on the phone and the internet, and finally found one just up the road. For this good work, I made her a medal out of cardboard, and painted it gold. She was over the moon!
So off we trot for our joint first appointment. Having arrived, the usual form filling in ensued, and then we just had to sit back and wait….and wait….and wait. The trouble is, that since reaching forty, I seem to have entered some kind of second childhood. Don’t get me wrong, I am still the king of grumpy land, but a kind of annoying silliness sometimes possesses me, and always at the wrong times. There we are waiting in total silence, and I find myself rocking backwards and forwards on the chair, and humming the theme from ‘The dam busters’ with my arms outstretched. Miss Marple did her best to look unaffected by this, but I could tell by her fidgeting that I was pushing it.
While we are on the subject, I have never really had a good relationship with any of my previous dentists. It’s a very strange job really isn’t it? I have never understood why anyone would want to spend their day fiddling about in people’s horrible old mouths. Another thing that I find peculiar is the way that I am reduced to a ten year old upon entering the dentists. There I am sitting in the chair, and the dentist will say, "Have you been flossing?" I look sheepishly around the room, and reply in a feeble voice "Yes". The dentist will look at me over the top of her glasses, fold her arms and say "I’m going to ask you again, and this time, I want you to consider your answer carefully." Looking even more sheepish I say "A bit". "I don’t think we have, have we?" By this time, I am almost in tears, and with the voice of a mouse say "no". WHY? Why can’t I just say "No I haven’t been flossing. I am a grown up, and it’s my decision to let my teeth fall out, so get over it bitch"! But alas, I cannot. I do remember one quite odd experience at the dentists, when I must have been about fourteen. The school dentist was a middle aged woman, and her nurse was probably a bit younger. There I was laying in the chair, while she was attempting to carry out some procedure. She stopped and said, "You young man, have a very large tongue, and quite frankly it keeps getting in the way". She then glanced over to the nurse and said "I Imagine that you will make some lady very happy with that one day!" Muffled giggling then ensued, while I lay innocently in the chair, trying desperately to fathom what was so funny. In later years, the cause of such mirth obviously dawned on me. I can’t imagine anyone getting away with that sort of comment these days. You would be escorted from your house in the early hours of the morning, with your computer in a plastic bag, toot sweet! Unfortunately the dentist’s predictions came to nothing. I never did become cunnilingus world champion, just the odd largely unappreciated dabble…….sigh.
Anyway, on entering the dentists, I noticed two names. Both female. One was an Asian sounding name, and the other Russian-ish. In between rocking backwards and forwards on my chair etc, I spotted my two potential 'bringers of pain'. The Asian woman was middle aged, squat, and a bit dumpy, and the Ruscky was the things dreams are made of! Imagine Anna Kournikova in a crisp white dentist’s uniform, and you’re some way there. Which one would I get, which of these two women would be leaning over me, breasts only inches away from my face?......".Ah, come in please Mr. Mule", said Mrs. Patel…….Surprise surprise! "RACIST"…….I hear some of you cry, my reply to that. Don’t be so silly.
She did the examination, and found that I had a broken tooth. I knew this, but it was only the corner which had broken off. It was causing no problems at all, but she still insisted on filling it. She came up with some dental jargon as to why it needed to be repaired, but reading between the lines, it was probably that she fancied a new five iron that month, and the pain endured by me and a few other poor souls would help finance this. Oh cynicism, the curse of the mildly intelligent…….sigh. She installed a temporary filling, which as usual, had come out even before I had exited the building! At a later date, she installed the genuine, pucker, real McCoy filling, and off I went on my merry way.
It was shortly after this, that I realized there was a God! One lunchtime whilst at work, I decided to go into the local village for a mooch about. I parked the car, and strolled along the pavement, heading towards the mini supermarket there. I was hoping to sate my magazine addiction, but was distracted on the way. As I walked along, a familiar smell caressed my nostrils, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The local chip shop. It was at this point that a familiar battle then ensued. It’s a battle that is rarely far from my vicinity. Whenever I face a dilemma, the usual two protagonist’s rear up to do battle. On my right shoulder is the ‘Good Angel’, lets call him Gabrielle, and on the left, the ‘Naughty devil’, lets call him Lucifer. The battle went something like this…….
Lucifer "Ooh there’s the chip shop, go on get yourself a bag of chips"
Gabrielle "Are you sure you want to do that, remember your expanding waist line"
Lucifer "Oh fuck off square, don’t listen to him, what the hell difference is one bag of chips going to make".
Gabrielle "I couldn’t agree more, ONE bag of chips would make very little difference. It’s the previous four thousand bags of chips added to this one, that are doing the damage".
Lucifer "Ignore him, he is a party pooper. It’s his fault you haven’t had as much sex or drugs as you would have liked".
Gabrielle "I’m only looking after your interests. If it was left up to him, you would be a pox ridden, morbidly obese smack head by now".
Lucifer "Christ (Irony!) he does exaggerate. He wants to chill out a bit. You need those chips, that’s what he doesn’t understand".
"Gabrielle "Oh Purleeeeese……."
This went on for sometime. The result of this inner turmoil…….
Fishcake and chips, a buttered bread roll, and a can of Pepsi!.......sigh.
I scuttled off to the car like a naughty schoolboy, and headed off to my ‘chip layby’. The chips were just how I like them, soft centered, but with a crispy outside. A half a dozen mouth fulls in, and it happened…….CRACK! The filling that had cost so much money, taken several trips to the dentist, and vast amounts of pain found itself cascading down my esophagus, among a deluge of chips. This ladies and gentlemen is how I know that there is a God. He is indeed omnipotent, and despite what the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Vicar of Dibley would have you believe, he is a vindictive swine!
God bless you! Mule.