More drugs, please

Good lord, sometimes life can be crueler than fiction.

As of Sunday we didn't have a single operational vehicle in our driveway. It always seems to happen that way, and usually when the bank account is at it's emptiest. Why is that?

Fortunately, hubby's car was an easy fix-- just needed a new battery. At least, that's what we thought. But after purchasing said new battery and installing it, the little beast still gave trouble starting. Ends up there's a bad terminal, too. Not a major problem, but one hubby wasn't interested in addressing at 10 pm while hunched over the hood of his car in the dark, flashlight between his teeth, in a drizzle. It got him to work today, so I'm assuming that it's still ok.

My car, on the other hand. Well, has anything ever been cheap or easy to fix on it? Nope.

So, after just paying off all of our credit card debt, I had to go and plunk down a huge sum of money this morning for a new serpentine belt and tensioner. Who knew that a tensioner was an expensive part?

My biggest predicament with the car being broken today, of all days, was that not only did I have to get J to school, but had to be back by 11 because his class was putting on a "funny feet parade" in honor of the letter F. Cute, right? J proudly designed his own funny foot coverings out of some of those little foam craft sheets and lots of stickers. He was quite proud of them. How could I miss my baby boy's shining moment as leader of the parade?

The mechanic assured me that he'd have it done on time, and I'll be damned if he didn't pull it off-- I pulled out of the shop at 10:50! I made it just in time to watch J throw a temper tantrum and refuse to participate in the parade because a piece of his little costume had come undone. So we sat and watched the rest of the school and I cheered them on while he stood in the corner, arms crossed, sulking.

After that, it was a trip to the dentist for me. I could stop here, but why?

You see, I've got this weird sort of tolerance for local anesthetics. It's happened in the past on three occasions in this particular dentist's chair, and he's well aware of it. He has me come in about an hour before he's ready to get started, he gives me the good stuff, and then leaves me to sit so it can take effect. Today it didn't work. We went two rounds- four injections each, and only the slightest bit of numbing. Finally, I told him to go ahead and just start drilling. Two excruciating hours later, I've got a new temporary filling holding a tiny fraction of tooth together, and he stated that when I'm ready for the actual root canal and crown, he's going to refer me out to a surgeon who can do full anesthesia, then drops the bomb that in order to get a crown on this tooth I'm going to require gum surgery as well. I'm now strongly leaning towards simply extracting the offending molar and being done completely and forever. I'm waiting on insurance to give me quotes to make the decision final. Even the dentist agrees that it won't be too much of a loss to go that route. Maybe he just doesn't want to see me back in his chair, white knuckling the armrests. Really, he's a great guy, and it's not his fault.

Perhaps the only saving grace of the day is that J fell asleep in the car on the way home from Abuela's at 6, which means I can probably drink myself into oblivion before he wakes up at 2 a.m. ready to start a new day.

And really, I do have cute and uplifting things to share with you. But it'll have to wait until the right side of my face stops throbbing.