27/09/2011

Confession: Open Wide

Hi Simon,

My confession dates back to 1976 when I was 13 and in need
of a tooth extraction. In those days they used nitrous oxide (better known as laughing gas) to put you to sleep and my Mum was given specific instructions to keep me ‘nil by mouth’ on the day of the appointment to prevent the anaesthetic from making me feel queasy.

The big day arrived and I sat jealously watching my Mum, Dad and
Sister eating their breakfast, begging my Mum to give me a cup of tea.
She finally relented and gave me a very small cup and a solitary plain digestive biscuit, making me promise not to tell the dentist. She then took me to school, arranging to meet at the school gate at 1pm so she could take me to the 2pm appointment.

The previous evening, the teachers had held a cheese and wine evening (well, this was 1976, I should remind you) and as there was a surplus of cheese they asked if the pupils would like some. Well, I have always been a lover of cheese, I was something of a teenage connoisseur in fact, so, during our morning break, I helped myself to a nice bit of cheddar, a corner of brie and a wedge of stilton, and some of those nice little salty crackers, even moving around the class to mop up leftovers from the other pupils who weren’t accustomed to the aquired taste of blue cheese. I should also say that I had a small school lunch as well.

It was only as I was approaching my Mum at the school gate that I remembered that I was supposed to be strictly ‘nil by mouth’. I decided it was best to keep quiet! We duly arrived and I was introduced to the friendly anaesthetist and quickly put to sleep. However before long (it was hard to tell precisely) I was being woken up by a now not so friendly anaesthetist asking what exactly I had been eating - as the anaesthetic had made me rather ill. Still under the influence of the laughing gas, I chuckled and said only that my Mum – who was lovingly waiting alongside me - had given me a cup of tea and a biscuit. I said nothing about my own snack and lunch.

The anaesthetist turned virtually purple with rage and directed his verbal vitriol at my mother. He was joined by the dentist who called her a ‘timewaster’ and even the receptionist, angrily flipping the pages of the diary to make a replacement appointment, stuck her oar in and tutted at my Mum, before announcing what had happened to the rest of the patients.

When we left, my Mum had no choice to take a slow walk of shame through the waiting room, where a plethora of voices greeted her with disapproving shakes of the head, and greeted me with sympathetic lines such as ‘the poor little girl’ and ‘how could you make your child ill, you must be ashamed of yourself’. Needless to say, I remained silent throughout.

Simon I would now like to beg forgiveness not only from the dentist and anaesthetist for wasting their time, but also from my Mum who still doesn’t know that I had gorged myself on cheese and crackers.........until now!

Stacy