I've got a weird ~ma request that isn't apocalypsy.

This evening, I noticed a ragged fingernail and did what one will do...I bit it. Something felt weird.

The back of one of my lower front teeth fell off. Seriously. A chunk just came off!

The good news is, a) it doesn't hurt, b) I was able to retrieve the chunk in one piece and c) you couldn't tell it was missing by looking at me.

The bad news is a) I can't seem to keep my tongue out of the gap, b) I have no dental adhesive or superglue to put it back in and c) I'm terrified I will clamp down in the night and the front of the tooth will collapse.

Plus. I have no insurance and no money. I do have a medical credit card with a small credit line.

I guess the ~ma I'd appreciate is: no more breakage and a local dentist who can fix it without costing an arm and a leg.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm flummoxed.

I'm watching Sober House. I'm realizing that, even though I know nothing about him, I do not believe a single thing that Andy Dick says. Just something about the way he talks, I can't believe any of it.

Also, when he showed up at the house, it was late, and Rodney King was asleep on the couch. Andy didn't want to wake him, so instead, petted him on the head. There are so many things wrong with that. (One of which would be just self-preservation -- if you are a wee little person, as Andy Dick seems to be, do you really want to startle the really big person who possibly has some form of PTSD?)

Don't use superglue, bonny! A dentist should be able to bond the tooth without too much trouble or expense. If the tooth is still sound it should be ok. Dental~ma regardless.

I've had that happen, bonny. Sadly. Had just a whole chunk of tooth fall right off. That was the time the dentist was like "These things happen as we get older!" and I gave him the stare of Doom and said "I'M TWENTY SIX!!!!!"

Get thee to a dentist. They'll rig up a thing around your tooth with a clampy bit, and a weird light, and nasty smelling things, and a fake bit, most likely (...I don't know if they will use the real tooth bit, I never had it) and glue it all together.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear that this isn't some totally anomalous thing.

The tooth seems okay...except for the cave in the back. But now I'm looking at all the rest of them...

Cash, the universe must have been looking out for me because in my MacGyvery panic, I pulled out some nail glue...pretty much superglue with a different label, but it's been in the drawer so long, it had all dried up. Now that you mention it, I suppose that would have made things much worse.

Thanks for the good thoughts.

meep.

bonny, tooth~ma.

I am home from Victor's birthday bash. It was so much fun, and I got to see our lovely vw too! Now I am way too hyped up to sleep.

I've known a few other people who had the tooth randomly breaking thing.

I've got a chipped front tooth, from an accident when I was a kid. (Lesson learned: playground swings are meant to swing back and forth, not diagonally.) The dentist put a cap on it, but the cap fell off after a few years. I kind of want to get it recapped, but insurance wouldn't cover it since it's cosmetic, and the dentists I've talked to about it have all said that it would be better to cap all the front teeth, so that the color would match, and that seems like more hassle than I really want to deal with. The chipped tooth is obvious to anyone who looks even somewhat closely at my teeth, but it's not a huge piece, and people that I just have casual conversations with don't always notice it, so it's not really that big a deal.

Ah, life without dental insurance. It's just ridiculously expensive for individual coverage. The tooth that ended up costing me roughly the price of a trip around the world started by having two pieces of the tooth just fall out. That was two days after surgery after six months of chemo, so hardly the same, but it was very startling. I inherited my mother's teeth, which have roughly the strength of a Chiclet.

I hope yours is just a bonding job, Bonny. From my experience, I'd say that if the dentist starts talking about a crown, really quiz her about the strength of the tooth that's left. I would have been way better off going directly to the implant. My dentist did let me space out payments.

Good luck with the tooth, bonny.

Hil made my head go BOING with her talk of a house somewhere with Andy Dick and Rodney King inside it, and called Sober House to boot. And it's a real show, really on tv? What is wrong with people? Do we have no dignity or sense of shame?!

My head is still boinging.

Hil made my head go BOING with her talk of a house somewhere with Andy Dick and Rodney King inside it, and called Sober House to boot. And it's a real show, really on tv? What is wrong with people? Do we have no dignity or sense of shame?!

It's a real show. It's a reality show of celebrities (although that word is used pretty loosely) who have just gotten out of rehab, living in this sober-living house for a few weeks before totally going back out into the real world. It's a kind of in-between step, where they're allowed to go hang out with friends and leave the house and stuff, but there are also rules, like curfew and that they have to get regular jobs, and their stuff is regularly checked for hidden drugs and things like that.

It's got Rodney King, Steven Adler (drummer for Guns 'n' Roses, who managed about four hours before he got high again), Seth something (he did that "come my lady, come come my lady, you're my butterfly, sugar, baby" song in the late nineties), Mary something (a porn star), Amber something (no clue who she is), and Nikki something, who was on American Idol a few years ago. And now, Andy Dick.

Also, Dr. Drew as the therapist. My initial feeling about this show, and still my feeling after watching a few episodes, is that "on national TV" is probably one of the worst ways to try to get clean.

Also, in last week's episode, everybody except Rodney King went out to a nightclub. The staff people all told them that it was a spectacularly dumb idea, but they wanted to go anyway, and they were allowed to, as long as they got back by curfew. Rodney King was the only one who decided not to go. He went out to dinner with the staff people instead. And on the way back to the house, they passed by some cops arresting someone. And one of the staff people said to Rodney, "You see that? That could have been you tonight. That might be one of them tonight. But you made the right choice, coming out to dinner instead of going to the nightclub." And while he meant well, it seemed to me that drawing his attention to cops arresting someone was not necessarily the best idea.

Yes, this show is atrocious. And no, I can't stop watching. I don't think there's a sober house for bad reality TV addicts.