the carnage continues

Valentine's Day is a fun day in our family. I have a traditional meal that I always prepare for the day of love; pink smashed potatoes and heart-shaped biscuits are always on the menu. But not this year!

We were already strapped for time to come up with surprises and a fancy meal when Valentine's Day began. Thursdays are busy days for us! I have my skiing class almost all day, so I was already going to be tired and sweaty by the time I got home, but we weren't planning on me being toothless as well. But I was!

I was getting off the lift when a snowboarder fell right in front of me and I tripped over her. I ended up punching myself in the mouth with my ski pole, and when I came back up I spat out a tooth! I was kind of wondering where it came from, because I wasn't in any pain, and I didn't think I'd even punched myself that hard. There was no blood, and everything else was fine on me. But I couldn't figure out how I'd randomly had an extra tooth to spit out, so I felt around and realized there was a gaping hole in the front of my mouth. Lovely.

So I skied to the bottom of the mountain and tried calling my husband. I had to stand on one foot on top of a picnic table to get reception, and then I remembered that Charles was in his hardest class, so I texted him instead. "I had an accident and knocked a tooth out. Can I come home now?" He texted me back and said he was on his way.

The thing was, I was skiing so well that day! You should have seen me. I was turning exactly when I wanted to, and the skis were listening to me for once. It was awesome snow, too. There were times when I couldn't see my feet, because I was going through deep powder above my ankles, but it didn't slow me down at all. And I wasn't as timid, either. I was going really fast and trying new things. I felt like it was a really good skiing day for me, and I wasn't ready for it to end. And the fact that I wasn't bleeding and I wasn't in pain made me want to keep skiing more, but I figured I should probably get to a dentist.

Charles, my knight in shining white Jeep showed up and he had already made an appointment for me with a dentist in Provo on his mad dash to Sundance to save my tooth. He'd already called his mom, my mom, and all the dentists and endodentists in Provo to see who could squeeze me in right before they closed. The dentist who finally agreed to see me was the same dentist who did my root canal freshman year. And since it was the same tooth that was now in my hand, I figured it made sense to go to him.

He had a really cool waiting room, I have to tell you. It had massage chairs (which Charles made good use of for the time that I was being drilled into) and a giant birdcage with really cool birds in it. They looked like tiny arctic puffins. And there was a snack bar, with a sign that said "Please take a nutritional snack!" All kinds of crackers and granola bars and stuff. And the secretary brought out some juice for us while we waited, Charles in the waiting room and me in the dentist's chair. And they even asked Charles what kinds of magazines I was interested in so they could bring me one I would like while I waited. All of this made me kind of nervous, because I knew we'd end up paying for it in the end. And we did, but at least I now had all my teeth in the right spots!

In light of our adventure, and how stressed out we were, we decided to forego the pink potatoes and went out to dinner at the Thai Kitchen instead. It was delicious, as always, and Charles just told me that my entry was too long and nobody would comment if I kept typing so you'll have to wait for the rest of the story. I'll post a picture for you, as a sneak preview of coming attractions, though.