I'm not sure why I have been procrastinating on posting the two things I mentioned in an earlier entry that I have been meaning to write about. I mean, if I don't feel like writing here, then who cares? Why bother? It isn't like it is a requirement or a job duty or something. But since today is a snowy day (we're having some winter and January isn't even over yet), I landed on posting them today.

I've been doing some thinking about my experiences at the dentist. What with my looming extraction (I guess I have made peace with that outcome), this has been on my mind. I remembered that as a kid, I went to this guy who I think was supposed to specialize in treating children. At least that's my assumption, because it isn't where anyone else in my family went. I vaguely remember that I gave my mother a hard time about going to the dentist - was scared, uncooperative, etc. My baby teeth ached, and her home remedy was to put whiskey on them. Eventually she took me to this kid's dentist that I mentioned. Even as a small child (I was in early elementary school, I'd say), I thought he was weird. He was one of those people who was way too affectionate, holds you on his lap, etc. I thought it was creepy, how overly friendly he was. I wasn't much a touchy-feely person, even then. He used nitrous oxide rather than Novocaine, and in thinking about it, that may be the real reason my mother took me there.

I remembered this dental experience because some people have told me that I should ask for nitrous oxide when I get my tooth extracted, since I don't really want to be put completely out with IV, and I think many people fear Novocaine. (I can't say I am crazy about it, not so much the needle itself - the problem is the numbness afterwards, but I can deal with it.) But I have no intention of asking for nitrous oxide, because I had it many times at that creepy dentist's, and I hated the strange feeling. Thinking about it almost makes me panic.

A few years after I left his practice and went to the regular dentist my family all used, that weirdo was arrested for molesting, or at least inappropriately touching a woman - or maybe several women, I can't remember. No surprise there.

The second story I wanted to tell was that a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my niece had gotten one of her ears pierced, not on the lobe, but on the upper part. My sister and I agreed that is one place besides our earlobes where we wouldn't have minded having another hole. (We also agreed that while when we were younger we might have had it done, there is no chance we will do it now.) Then we started reminiscing about our original ear piercings. We both had a second hole done at a jewelry store when we were adults, but our first holes were done by our mother, with a needle, thread, cork, and ice. (Owww!) Then for a couple of weeks afterwards, you had to put alcohol on it and turn the blood-crusted thread. Finally, you could put in gold earrings, but even then, you had to be sure the hole stayed open and apply alcohol for a long time. It was excruciating!! However, we wanted pierced ears so badly, we didn't complain.

In those days, no other girls had pierced ears. You either didn't get them at all, or you waited until you were grown up. My mother did not only both of us, but herself, and many of my sister's friends and our cousins. She told my grandfather that she wanted pierced ears, and he said his sisters had done themselves, using the needle and thread method (probably important to mention here that my grandfather was born in 1874). When we were laughing about it, we asked my mother whether she had asked the other kids' mothers if it was OK for her to pierce their ears? She shook her head no and said "they just went home with pierced ears." Imagine if that happened today - the parents would probably start a lawsuit!