I went to the dentist today and he told me "Kyle, you've got a secondary cavity under an old filling in your bottom left molar and I'm going to have to give you a root canal," which was great news because the dentist I went to two weeks ago before I left for China told me "Kyle you've got cavities, so many cavities. Boy you've got so many cavities I'm not sure how many you have. Five? Don't hold me to that number. One of them needs a root canal and just to be sure I'm going to drill out the middle of all your molars and pour *Cerc brand ceramic-like goop into those holes and fill them in because you don't need teeth you need very small vases in your mouth. And that's going to cost you 2,800,000 Won. Also, your gums are too low. I think it best if I perform a gum graft, where just like it sounds like a cut a piece of your gums off, and slap it somewhere else. You'll need three of those. You're mouth is pretty fucked. Have you ever thought about fixing the gap in your teeth. Let me show you some pictures. You would be much more attractive. Look at how many very shiny pamphlets I have concerning all these procedures, almost as though I knew everything that I'd find wrong with you before you even came in. We x-rayed you in the elevator. I'll leave you with my assistant so that I can comb some more distinguished grey through this lush inky black quaff of mine. Don't call me an asshole on the way out because we've got sensors for that."
Before we (he) started the procedure today I told him that two friends of mine got cavities filled in Korea and they weren't given enough anesthetic. When they cried out in pain they were just told to be quiet and lay still. I asked for his assurance that this wouldn't be the case today. He just laughed and stuck me with three needles in what felt like terribly slow succession, each one pushed strenuously with a surprising amount of visible effort on his part to get through the muscle of my jaw so it would numb me up into my temple and down into my throat, making swallowing a little tough. They lay a large green piece of felt over my face with a hole cut in it for my mouth and began.
With some things, you just like the familiar. I grew up on pounds of skittles. This was not my first rodeo. Back home though, I am used to having a nice big springloaded plastic "widener" forced into my mouth to comically spread my cheeks away from the work in progress. That intense stretch of the skin away from the gums is comforting. It tells me "all your shit is far away from the drill, and you're not going to get any lose skin caught up and spun around the bit until your bottom lip tears off." But not here. I opened my mouth wide and the dentist just went in there. I guess the felt would keep me from seeing the blood fly through the air, but the felt slipped so I'd have seen anyway. I repeated the chorus to a song I don't know that goes "I am a rock, I am an Iiiiiiiiiiiiii-land." I told myself that people are tortured in Iran. I sang Leonard Cohen in my head because I saw in an interview with a man that was tortured in Iran that singing Leonard Cohen songs had brought him great peace. When it was over, I was told that I'd have to come back four more times. At the door, the receptionist told me she'd have a Korean name for me by the time I came back on Tuesday. On the bus, I decided to still go bouldering. I practice swallowing, and planned how not to bite myself in exhertion on the rock wall.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Forget it kid, it's China town
When we woke up in the airport, Brittney pointed at the cockroaches skittering around the floor. I remembered the, what I thought were, phantom skuttled along my toes in the night. I'd never slept over in an airport, so I figured that was a pretty good first time.
We hadn't planned to sleep in the airport originally, but we also hadn't planned for our flight home to leave from mainland China instead of Hong Kong. By "didn't plan" I of course mean we "didn't know we'd booked a flight out of mainland China." Not a problem really, just meant a late subway, a written lie about the previous days excitable bowls at the border, and a Chinese Big Mac meal at 1 in the morning with Brittney glazing over, fretting about nugget meals and knocking over water bottles for the poor boy working the lobby in a country without a minimum wage to clean up. When I lay down on the metal bench seating I'd chosen for my bed, I didn't expect to sleep much. Then some security guards came around and made motions that maybe we weren't allowed to sleep there and I thought I wouldn't be allowed to sleep much, (even though everyone was sleeping everywhere.) Then the guards suddenly left and I decided to sleep some just to spite them. I woke up at 6:30am to my alarm and the cockroaches.
I had never missed a flight before, but we did that too.
Our plane left at 7:50. Gate D it said. Gate D was inexplicably on the other side of Gate A from Gates B and C. There were many more dragon flies mating outside than there were people inside. In retrospect, a warning. There was no loading time beside our flight, and I assumed any minute the board would change to reflect what was apparent: our flight had been delayed. But there were no ticketing desks open, no customer service reps. Finally, Brittney asked a security guard, who did something on a something and told us our plane left from Gate B, and we'd missed it.
At the desk in Gate B, I could hear the hearty swell of emotions that potentially being asked to pay for another plane ticket brings up in Brittney's voice so I tried to put my own two cents in to impress all with my calm and even temper. Within three seconds I discovered that my temper was not even, but instead quite akimbo. I don't know if the woman at the desk understood intricately how her airline had fucked us over, which is what I desperately wanted at that minute, but she soon had new tickets for us free of charge.
We arrived at the ticket desk in Shanghai, (the second leg of our return home), and were told "the tickets close one minutes later," which meant "we have just stopped giving out boarding passes for your flight a minute ago." However, there was a reversal of fortunes that day. They could give one of us a ticket in economy and one of us a ticket in business class. We rock paper scissored for it and oh boy did the guys at the baggage counter laugh. One man told us that they had two tickets after all and, joking, that it had been a test. I had never sat in business class before. We made several too many jokes about how much better it was to be late for flights. I thought though, as I got on the plane, that 28 A was a bit far back for business class. It was in fact the very back corner of the plane. Brittney got the very front corner, but of economy. They hadn't discovered a second seat open in business, they'd found two tickets in economy. And I had even got on when they called for the business class tickets (which is before the plebians). The flight attendants likely spoke of me over champagne that night.
Back in Korea, we were kicked off the hour and a half busride home. It drove off, and we found out from the helpful and sorry lady inside the airport that A: the smart people bought tickets for that bus a long time ago, B: the next bus was in two hours and C: we'd better take a taxi to a train that we'd have to stand on. To hopefully no one's surprise now, we were intercepted by the very bus driver who kicked us off before we could get to the taxi, taken back onto his bus, and driven home for the very reasonable price of seven dollars.
It was all a Chinese miracle.
We hadn't planned to sleep in the airport originally, but we also hadn't planned for our flight home to leave from mainland China instead of Hong Kong. By "didn't plan" I of course mean we "didn't know we'd booked a flight out of mainland China." Not a problem really, just meant a late subway, a written lie about the previous days excitable bowls at the border, and a Chinese Big Mac meal at 1 in the morning with Brittney glazing over, fretting about nugget meals and knocking over water bottles for the poor boy working the lobby in a country without a minimum wage to clean up. When I lay down on the metal bench seating I'd chosen for my bed, I didn't expect to sleep much. Then some security guards came around and made motions that maybe we weren't allowed to sleep there and I thought I wouldn't be allowed to sleep much, (even though everyone was sleeping everywhere.) Then the guards suddenly left and I decided to sleep some just to spite them. I woke up at 6:30am to my alarm and the cockroaches.
I had never missed a flight before, but we did that too.
Our plane left at 7:50. Gate D it said. Gate D was inexplicably on the other side of Gate A from Gates B and C. There were many more dragon flies mating outside than there were people inside. In retrospect, a warning. There was no loading time beside our flight, and I assumed any minute the board would change to reflect what was apparent: our flight had been delayed. But there were no ticketing desks open, no customer service reps. Finally, Brittney asked a security guard, who did something on a something and told us our plane left from Gate B, and we'd missed it.
At the desk in Gate B, I could hear the hearty swell of emotions that potentially being asked to pay for another plane ticket brings up in Brittney's voice so I tried to put my own two cents in to impress all with my calm and even temper. Within three seconds I discovered that my temper was not even, but instead quite akimbo. I don't know if the woman at the desk understood intricately how her airline had fucked us over, which is what I desperately wanted at that minute, but she soon had new tickets for us free of charge.
We arrived at the ticket desk in Shanghai, (the second leg of our return home), and were told "the tickets close one minutes later," which meant "we have just stopped giving out boarding passes for your flight a minute ago." However, there was a reversal of fortunes that day. They could give one of us a ticket in economy and one of us a ticket in business class. We rock paper scissored for it and oh boy did the guys at the baggage counter laugh. One man told us that they had two tickets after all and, joking, that it had been a test. I had never sat in business class before. We made several too many jokes about how much better it was to be late for flights. I thought though, as I got on the plane, that 28 A was a bit far back for business class. It was in fact the very back corner of the plane. Brittney got the very front corner, but of economy. They hadn't discovered a second seat open in business, they'd found two tickets in economy. And I had even got on when they called for the business class tickets (which is before the plebians). The flight attendants likely spoke of me over champagne that night.
Back in Korea, we were kicked off the hour and a half busride home. It drove off, and we found out from the helpful and sorry lady inside the airport that A: the smart people bought tickets for that bus a long time ago, B: the next bus was in two hours and C: we'd better take a taxi to a train that we'd have to stand on. To hopefully no one's surprise now, we were intercepted by the very bus driver who kicked us off before we could get to the taxi, taken back onto his bus, and driven home for the very reasonable price of seven dollars.
It was all a Chinese miracle.
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