Wisdom on the right

So Monday was quite odd. Work as usual in the morning, which was fine, but then I had to leave at 2pm to go to Harley Street for two separate appointments to do with my wisdom teeth. Harley Street is a weird concept, isn't it? The idea of there being a garment district, a red-light district, a street dedicated to selling guitars and a street specialising in great curry restaurants all makes a bit of sense to me, but having all these absurdly over-priced doctors and healthcare professionals based in an area where very few people can live is just strange. Before I went there, I imagined that they were all uber-nice consulting rooms with seriously swanky facilities. I had visions of my consultant welcoming me in to a Regency drawing-room with a butler and a chaise longue. But his tiny little space was high up in a not-particularly-impressive town house, a badly decorated room with not enough furniture and dim lighting. Why not hire somewhere nicer elsewhere? I don't understand it. The building's sole extraordinary feature was that, on the ground floor, by the lift, lit by a spotlight, was a polished glass plaque celebrating the fact that these premises had been opened a few years previously by none other than Martine McCutcheon, Entertainer. Words fail me.

Anyway, the whole experience was a bit terrifying, because I turned up for my first appointment at a different clinic, to have an x-ray, but it turned out that I hadn't brought the form that no one had told me was remotely essential, and they were about to refuse to x-ray me, but then they called my consultant and he said he would write me another one as long as I went round the corner to his office to collect it. So that was fine with me, and I went to pick it up and he was visibly annoyed with me for forgetting the form, which is, I suppose, understandable, but it's been a while since I've been told off and it's never been my strongest suit.

So I got the replacement form, went back to the x-ray place, had my x-ray, went back to the consultant's poky office, waited for him to see about thirty other people since I'd missed my appointment slot with all the faffing with the forms, and then had my meeting with him, where he told me that taking out a lower wisdom tooth carries with it a 1% chance of destroying the nerve endings that control that side of your tongue or your lower cheek and chin, potentially leaving you with permanent numbness or tingling. So they don't like doing the extraction unless it's completely necessary. I was rapidly going off the idea but I want to do it while I'm still employed as I have BUPA and inevitably won't have any benefits wherever I work next, whenever that might be. So I agreed to it, and left. Then I phoned his secretary and she asked me to go for the operation this Thursday. I kind of panicked but then thought it was best to get it over with, and agreed, but then twenty minutes later I phoned her back and moved it to the beginning of March.

Then I had over two hours to kill until choir and, for once, with no energy to shop and the cortisol rushing around my system following my dental adventures, I went to Starbucks (a place I would normally avoid comme la plague), found a comfortable armchair in the basement and was asleep within seconds. I woke up an hour later with a crowd of wealthy Mayfair teenagers sitting around me, chatting amongst themselves. Another of life's signs that I am getting old. Hey ho. My life is pretty darn good at the moment, so I'm not complaining. And, having read online today that eating a doner kebab is equivalent to drinking a glass and a half of fat, I am feeling smug with myself, as I have never in my life eaten a doner kebab. Shish, yes. Doner, no. And I think it's safe to say I probably won't be starting any time soon...