joe bloggs

Small talk can be difficult.

It's hard to know whether the barber or the dentist is really interested or is just asking questions for the sake of it. Well, you'd get bored too if all you did all day was snap scissors around people's heads or plunge your hands down their throats.

So I went back to the dentist. A bit of tooth fell off, nothing major, you wouldn't even know to look at it, it just felt a little sharp.

He's a funny guy. Asks questions while both his hands and half the equipment in the dental surgery are down your throat.

'How's life?'

Urgle-urgle.

Then he asked, what have you read lately?

He had his hands out of my mouth for a moment so I replied, well, I've just read everything Raymond Chandler ever wrote, wondering whether I should have just said, oh nothing much, just the papers.

'He only wrote eight,' the dentist immediately replied.

Click!

It was one of those moments. The guy knows what he's talking about.

Then he left me for dead. Damn. I hate that. I'm the customer - I get to be smarter, don't I? It's in the rules, isn't it?

He started telling me how I should read Roth and Bellow and how they had been inducted into the Hall of Fame or whatever it is they have for famous American authors.

Christ, I haven't read any of those guys.

Then I thought I had him. He mis-pronounced Saul Bellow's name as Bellows. HA!

I didn't call him on it. Well, I couldn't, half his dental surgery was back down my throat. Fortunately. I found out next day - in the obituary - that Bellow's real name was Bellows.

My dentist is a genius and knows everything about everything.

He fixed my tooth as well.









is it time for a nap yet? i think so