.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

Today has not been good so far. For a start, broadband has not been playing nicely with any of the computers here (which also means I may or may not be able to post this). We don't know why - news of any eclipse outages?? - thinking of switching to Green ISP anyway. Whatever.

The worst thing by far was my trip to the dentist. I'm just glad that C came too (I may be 33 but I'm still too scared to go alone sometimes, especially now that we left our gracious and charming old dentist behind in Preston when we moved), and that the dental assistant was very nice indeed, because the dentist was scary.

[DRILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL]

"You need to decide whether you want your tooth out NOW, or if you want to come back twice for longer and scarier appointments, or if you want to pay £300 to be referred to a specialist who may or may not be able to help you."

[MUCH PANIC]

(This bit was edited perfectly by C, who knew it would send me over the edge, so she told me in the car afterwards:) "I can't work with you if you're goiing to have an attitude like that. You need to be more enthusiastic if I'm going to save your tooth."

What was I meant to do, spit out the dental juice and say, "OH YES, PLEASE! I'd love to come back again!"?!

[MORE PANIC]

(Also edited by C)"...You're going to have to hurry up because I have a waiting room full of people."

[DRILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL]

[TEARS OUTSIDE]

Christ. I'll let her off because she's a good dentist and a nice lady really - and because English seems to be her second language, so perhaps something was lost in her translation. I cannot say I am looking forward to my second and third appointments, however.

Then, when we left the dental car park with Harrythedog to take him for a quick walk, we doubled back along the towpath that runs next to it and looked over the wall to see A MAN WAS PUTTING A CLAMP ON OUR CAR. Somehow, C managed to convince him that we'd been to the dentist - showing him the receipt helped - so he grumbled to himself and took it away again.

Just imagine - someone actually sits in a car all day in Mytholmroyd Health Centre's car park, watching out in case someone decides to walk their dog after they've been traumatised at the dentist, and then leaps out and gets a huge yellow metal contraption from their boot and sticks it on their tyre and charges them £75 to have it removed, or tries to, anyway.

Wow.