One of 'those' moments!

Today was dreaded dentist day, those of you who have read here over time will know that me and dentistry do not a happy combination make by any stretch of the imagination! I hate it and nothing on God's green earth seems to prevent me from turning into a useless heap of quivering jelly from about 48 hours prior to any appointment....today wasn't any different and added to that it had a kind of horrible extra significance.

You see, despite my being, um.... a great big useless coward 'forty something,' wherever possible I have taken someone along with me for moral support...and usually that has been my dad over recent years. Given my age and my degree of fear this had become something of a tradition that caused amusement among the reception staff, a fact that was to prove quite difficult on this occasion!

This was to be my first dental visit since my dad died and my first alone for quite some years. The lack of my dad by my side chivvying me along with his unending humour was pretty much on my mind anyway when I walked in alone on very wobbly legs and with somewhat wobbly emotions this afternoon but I was about to get a whole lot worse.

I was greeted with a cheery 'hello' and a smile by the attending receptionist....who then continued by making a joke of my managing to be their alone for once and asking where on earth my dad was this time!

I hesitated for a moment and then without thinking just said "he's dead". I perhaps could have said it with a little more tact but I was taken by such surprise that I just blurted out what came, what followed was one of 'those' seemingly unending silences which spread throughout the reception area, while someone thought what to say next.

Rarely lost for words for long, even if they aren't always entirely appropriate words, it was me who broke the silence with another knee jerk sentence...."I suppose while I'm here then I should ask you to remove him from your list of patients shouldn't I". I don't think it was perhaps my best line but distracted said receptionist from her embarrassment and I shuffled into to the lions den so distracted I forgot to be scared anymore.

Maybe my dad helped me in his absence just the same!