HUMOUR AND DESPAIR

It Can Be Very Hindering to Be An Idiot

Especially at the dentist

Annie Trevaskis
3 min readJul 1, 2024

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Picture of a woman with long dark hair wearing a gold crown on her head. She is also wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt that reads “IDIOT”. Bright yellow background.
Not me. Image created by author using Dalle-3 AND microsoft designer.

“You need a crown,” said my dentist.

And guess where my brain went? I thought he meant that I deserved some sort of medal for being such a good patient and not complaining about the injection or the numbness.

Or maybe it was the way I was being so genteel in the way I was discreetly dabbing a handkerchief to my mouth to make sure I wasn’t dribbling.

Yes. My brain thought he meant I deserved a crown like one of these:

Picture of white (regal) crown suspended against a dark background
Photo by Megan Watson on Unsplash

Life as an idiot would be so much easier if people didn’t use the same words to mean different things.

Of course, he meant a dental crown and a £900 fee because, let’s face it, someone is going to have to pay for the running costs on that flash Mercedes in the car park. And it might as well be me.

So there I was this morning, having my shiny new crown fitted. In my mouth, not on my head, when he confused me again. Twice.

First, he confused me with the whole cement thing.

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Annie Trevaskis
Annie Trevaskis

Written by Annie Trevaskis

I came, I wrote, I conquered. That last bit might not be true, but at least I am putting up a good fight.

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