It's not physical pain though, it's the other kind. The kind I get while sitting in my hairdressers chair, just not as much.

My dentist is just fine. He's gentle, really nice and he's easy on the eyes. It's his receptionist/assistant that sends me spiraling to hell. She's in her late 60's I'm guessing. She's also his mother, so she's not going anywhere anytime soon. He took over the business from his dad, but dad still hangs around. He's pretty cute the way he shuffles around the office with his suit jacket buttoned askew. I don't think I've ever been there and seen his buttons in the right button holes. And he really does shuffle. Kind of a night of the living dead sort of thing. His job, now that he's retired and all, is to ask you if you need a parking stamp. Oh, and he brings the x-rays from the dark room to my dentist.

"Mom" still wears a beehive, but it never looks like she's fresh from the beauty shop. It's a do-it-yourself beehive, complete with the little curls in front of her ears that require wearing hair tape the night before. She has completely drawn on thick eyebrows, and she also never really gets her eyeliner on straight so when she's in your face it can get kind of scary.

But these aren't the things that annoy me. So, what is it that bothers me about this woman you may be wondering. Two things. She asks me questions that require more than a yes or no answer while I have all kinds of dental paraphernalia in my mouth. The second and most annoying thing is her jokes. She tells the same ones EVERY time I go there. They are jokes that maybe a six year old would like. She'll tell them, then stand right up in your face and look all excited that she pulled one over on you while saying, "do you get it? do you get it?"

I play the game because I'm a nice girl. I pretend to never have heard the joke before and do my best to laugh and not roll my eyes. Here are two of my favorites. I share them with you because I know you're just dying to hear them.

Joke 1:
Dentist's Mom (DM): Why is eight afraid of seven?
Me: (thinking I can't believe I hear this one every.time.I.go.to.the.dentist. but I'll play along) I don't know. Why?
DM: Because seven ate (eight) nine.
DM: Do you get it? Do you get it, huh?

Joke 2:
DM: How many reindeers does Santa have?
Me: Ummmm, eight?
DM:Are you including Rudolf?
Me: Oh, ok, nine
DM: No, there are 10.
Me: Oh (thinking here we go again.....)
DM: Do you know how I know?
Me: (thinking, please just tell the freakin' joke already and get this over with...)
DM: Because there was a reindeer named Olive. Think about it!

Then she sings the Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer song and emphasises "Olive (all of) the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names..."

DM: (Laughing as if this is the first time she's heard this joke, much less told it. ) Isn't that funny? Did you get it? Did you get it, huh?
Me: Oh, that's a good one!

But I go back because as painful as it is for me, I can't imagine how my dentist lives through it day after day after day after day (just imagine that to infinity.) Sometimes he lets comments slip that make me giggle. Comments that assure me that I'm not the only one who is feeling pain in the dentist's office. So, I go there to support another person whose mother drives them insane.

My dentist is a saint.

I decided to join Blog Explosion a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to explore some new blogs. I've found some real gems and feel that this has been time well spent. I don't care about the 30 second thing. If a blog looks interesting to me, I'll read it for quite a while, comment and rate it, and then I'll bookmark it and go back for more when I'm looking for things to read. If I REALLY like it, I'll blogroll it on my site. If it's boring or [[OUCH!]] hard on the eyes, I'll move on. Quickly. No comment, no rating, no 30 second wait. I just move as quickly as I can.

The last SIX blogs that popped up are knitting and crafting blogs. SIX in a row. One more time for emphasis: Six...knitting...blogs...in...a...row. What the hell? Did all of the knitters band together and decide to join at the same time? Did Blog Explosion turn into TiVo gone horribly wrong? You TiVo folks know what I mean... Did Blog Explosion notice I paused for a while on a knitting site and then determine that I have a yarn fetish?

I would REALLY like it if I could click buttons next to the types of things you like to read. I'd like humor and blogs about the daily lives of interesting people, thank you. I would not be clicking the button next to political, rehashing of news, crafting, or anything having to do with promoting a business. Please do not take offense if you write those sorts of things. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who love reading your blogs. Just like I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't like to read the inane drivel I tend to write. No worries, it's all good.

Oh, since I'm on the topic of the annoying side of blogs. Read this by ASB. I'm just going to save myself some typing and say, "Me Too."

Thank you, and have a nice day.

I normally don't like to blog during work hours but for this, I need to make an exception.

I asked my brother what he wanted for Christmas (I drew his name this year). He wanted these. The minute I saw them I forwarded the site to hubby and said that I thought he should have a pair because they look really really comfortable. As a side note, I'd benefit too because then I wouldn't have to see him wearing black socks with his shorts anymore. That's always a plus.

But I digress.

One of my friends sent me a link to a gadget that is, well, pretty fab. I sent that link to hubby and said that I thought it was really cool. We're both geeky and like cool gadgets. The rest of the email exchange went like this:

BJ: This looks pretty freaking cool. Set up the docking station in the car so that it is removable and you can swap it to any car we're currently using. Hmmmmm...

Me: I know! I thought you'd like it... Maybe this is another Christmas present that we can buy ourselves, then I'll take complete custody of it. (tee hee... oh... that wasn't a very good try at subliminal suggestion was it?)

BJ: Oh, I thought it was for me! I get it now. You get the cool new satellite radio for Christmas with the docking stations and the TiVo recording capability and I get..............slippers.

Then I got a follow-up to that, just to dig the guilt knife in a bit deeper...

BJ: Yeah, and then for our birthdays you can get an Aviator with a GPS system, leather interior and a 7 speaker stereo and I can get ..............a tie.

He's a quick learner, don't you think?

I think I was practicing being a zombie this weekend. Or maybe a newborn. You decide.

Friday: Awake 16 hours, alseep 11.5 hours

Saturday: Awake 14 hours, asleep 10 hours

Sunday: Awake 7 hours, asleep 17 hours (several very sound naps during the day).

So in three days I was awake for 37 hours and asleep for just under 40 hours.

Thank goodness I have Prince Charming to wake me up....

My butt was in the hairdresser's chair for 4 1/2 hours. I kid you not. There is something about me that makes people want to open up their deepest darkest secrets to me. BJ and other's have commented on that many times. While flattering, sometimes it can be really disturbing. For instance, we'll be at the grocery store and suddenly the lady at the meat counter is telling me stuff that people would normally reserve for their best friend. I don't know the lady at the meat counter. All I wanted was some jumbo shrimp for Pete's sake. We walk away and hubby just shakes his head. "How do you do it?" he asks. I tell him that I honestly don't know. I just have one of those faces I guess.

For four hours and thirty minutes I listened to my hairdresser tell me things I wouldn't even talk to my sister about. Seriously. She stood there and talked to me for about 20 minutes before she even laid a hand on my head. While cutting if she got to a really 'good' part of one of her many stories, she'd stop cutting and stand there and go on with her soliloquy for another 30 minutes or so. I'd try to mentally WILL her to continue cutting or foiling, but to no avail. I even called my sister when the hairdresser was mixing the colors and asked her to call me in an hour in an effort to rescue me. You know, the sort of thing people do when they're on a really bad blind date. Nope, that didn't work either.

Care to read a snippet? Yeah, I thought so. Let me set this up a bit for you. She decided to take a chance on a guy she met online who originally said he was 32, but when they decided to meet in person, he fessed up to being 48. So, she flew across the U.S. to meet him and rather than being 48, she said that she thought he was probably in his 50's. AND most likely married. She decided to just have a good time while she was there. How many things can I find wrong in this scenario? Ummmmm, too many to count.

On with the snippet.We'll just call her Chatty Cathy so we keep things anonymous.

Chatty Cathy: Yack yack yack... then he couldn't perform... yack yack yack... I suggested viagra... yack yack yack... then he wanted to try "x". So I told him, if you can't get it in "there", then you certainly won't be able to get it in "THERE".

Me: (thinking) My ears are bleeding. Seriously, someone please take away my hearing. I cannot stand to hear another word.

Chatty Cathy: yack yack yack... four hours later... yack yack yack....

You're probably wondering what the conspiracy theory was today. Well, I'm not going to label it a conspiracy theory, but it was a theory none the less. Today's theory:

When you have sex with a man, he is infusing you with a sort of virus. That's what makes women fall in love with men when they have sex. It's a sex virus. Not a STD, it's more like a virus that attacks your chemical makeup. Apparently condoms are of no protection of this virus.

So now you know.

I'm really going to have to think awfully hard about going back. Four and a half hours. That's an awful long time to listen to this stuff.

On the other hand, my hair looks fabulous.