After

My husband rocks.  Here it is, nearly the middle of the cold night (11:30 pm). 

He went out, in shorts (its 45 degrees, brrr), filled up my car, and washed it...and all I had to do was....make him a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

It's not like I can't fill up my own car with gas, but we've not used it in a couple of weeks and I expressed worry about it not starting tomorrow (it's old and temperamental.)   I leave here at around 6 am, so I'm sure he was hedging his "Hooon--nneey?  Are you awake?  My car is acting up..." bets.  

I'm glad, I'm grateful, that he did it, and whether he did it because he is trying to get lucky, or just out of the goodness of his heart, or just to sleep a little longer, well, it doesn't matter.

It's proof that he does listen to me, on occasion, as last week I was telling him that I hate stopping for gas when I have the words "stop-n-rob" (hmm, where might I have read that particular term?) etched in my brain.   I hate feeling like a girl, standing there looking over my shoulder the whole time while the stray landscapers/construction workers are there doing the same thing.  (I'm very dangerous, you know.) 

It's so disconcerting to feel like you have to be so alert, when you'd rather be back in bed.

But not as disconcerting as something that happened to me earlier this week.

I had to go to the dentist.  I'm good about it, going for the cleaning, but this time, I was a little late.  I'd had to reschedule twice due to life.  I've been a little lax on the flossing. 

I was dreading it.

(Don't get me wrong, though.  I love the staff and my dentist.  They are really, really good, and I recommend them to other people all the time.)

So there I sat, waiting for Brooke.   I told her I'd been a bad, bad, girl and she moved over to me; shiny, sharp payback in her hand.

After a few minutes of her ministrations, I began to feel like a documentary on the Discovery Channel, "When Brushing Is Not Enough."

"Owuchth."

"Sorry."

"Itsth nowt your faulth.  Itsth miyne." 

"Hang in there."

"I promithse, I wilth floth eggvery day."

About oh, I don't know, thirty semi-tortuous minutes later, and she was done.  I even got the orange-creme flavored polish at the end, just to change things up a little (usually, I'm a sucker for the chocolate mint). 

I got a clean thumbs-up from my dentist.  He asked me how my (new) teeth were holding up, and I said to him that I love them so much, that now when people compliment me or ask me about them, I fake it and say that "they're real." 

I think he was amused but would rather I continue to sing his praises and refer others to the Altar of the Porcelain Veneer.

On my way out, I looked down at the coffee table, at the issue of People I'd been reading while I was waiting.  Next to it were a couple of leather notebooks...and eureka!  (forehead slap) it hit me.

I'm in one of those books!  And I forgot to look for myself in them!  Surely vanity should've overridden dread and reminded me to check out the books...

Flip, flip, flip....no me.

Flip, flip....okay, wth?  Aaaah,  here I am.

There is nothing more disconcerting than being a "before" shot and an "after" shot than realizing lots of people have probably seen these very photos, and one of them is decidedly not pretty.

Oy.  <stomach lurch>  That before picture....omg.  OMG.  Please, let that just be due to a bad day...did I really go out like that??  In public???

<snap book shut>

<curious, curious...crack it open again>

Oy.  <stomach lurch>  Hey, is that really me?  That photographer was an airbrushing genius,  who cares that he said I was zaftig;  I'm finding some way to light myself that way forever....me likey!

I looked at the two pictures for a minute or two, and then I had to stop.  There's really only so much of that anyone can take, and while I'm as vain as the next person, I have my limits.

The cool part is I'm reminded how happy I am with the way things turned out. 

And now that my mouth has returned to it's normal pre-visit non-soreness, I know what I have to do.

Buy more lippy?  Nah.

Floss on, floss off.

Or risk the wrath of Brooke the tormentor.