I Want A Day

I'm sitting here under a fine coating of pumice stone.  This means I've either been ground zero for an unambitious volcano or I've been to the dentist.

For an hour or so I lay in a chair while a cheerful, chatty woman bombarded my innocent teeth with pulverised rock.  As a side effect a fair amount of the upper part of my body is covered with grey dust.  I resemble a slightly animated inhabitant of Pompeii.  Thanks to this avalanche writ small I now have gleamy, clean teeth.  Or at least half my teeth are gleamy clean.  The other half are the shabby mess they've always been.

If she had cleaned alternate teeth I would have at least had a symmetrical pattern happening but instead she did one side of my mouth and left it at that.  The result is that my mouth feels somewhat lopsided.  On the positive side apart from a couple of holes and general neglect my actual teeth are in moderately goodish condition.

My mouth may be lopsided now but when the other half of my teeth are cleaned I will apparently possess a mouth of unparalleled beauty.  Or I would do if it weren't for the fact that my next dental appointment isn't for a month so by the time the other side gets cleaned the first lot will be back to their usual shabby state.  Thus I am doomed to spend the rest of my life with a lopsided mouth.

I won't play on my newfound disability too much.  I won't park in disabled parking spots or apply for welfare.  I will, of course, expect preferential treatment in restaurants and for people to give up their seat to me on the train.  That seems only fair.  Those of us who suffer from Lopsided Mouth Syndrome (LMS) are the modern day's tragic heroes.  We nobly bear our disability and ask for very little in return.

Sadly the lack of awareness of LMS means that I and my fellow sufferers (I presume there are some) are frequently the target of abuse by the ignorant and misinformed.  More than once some doddering pensioner or pregnant woman has responded with hostility when I demand their seat on a bus.  Several restaurant owners point blank refuse to accept my right to priority seating, churlishly demanding that I make a reservation and be prepared to pay the bill.  Even the police are unsympathetic, moving me along everytime I try to raise money for LMS by appealing to the kindness of people in the street.

To combat such blatant prejudice I've written to the United Nations demanding a day to raise awareness for LMS and SBS has approached me in relation to a fifteen part documentary about the difficulties of living with LMS.  At least I think that was what it was about, it was a little difficult to understand the person on the other end of the phone.  Most importantly of all I have produced our very own coloured ribbon to hand out to people at railway stations and intersections.  Its a sort of off yellow colour with brown streaks.

With a UN day and a coloured ribbon to pin to our clothing I think everyone would agree that there is simply nothing more to be done to assist sufferers of LMS and that all I have to do now is sit back and wait for the good times to be hand delivered to my door.  Which explains why I took the rest of the day off.