Wednesday, May 15, 2002. Entry #151

I don't believe it.

I think I've broken a tooth. The same damned tooth I just dumped a whack load of money on for a root canal. I noticed it last night after we came out of seeing Spider-Man with my cousin Dave.

(We really couldn't afford the movie, but I offered to go with him a couple weeks back after having to turn down his offer of going to a hockey game. And once you promise something to Dave, you can never, NEVER go back on it. Because he will just keep asking, and asking, and asking...)

After my last visit, I could feel with my tongue the misshapen lump of the temporary filling. But now the lump was gone, and there was a sharp point where I'm sure there wasn't one before.

I looked at it in the mirror last night and I can see what must have happened. You know how there are four 'bumps' on the top of each molar? Well, it looks like one of the bumps sheared off in the middle and took a wedge of tooth with it. I can actually see the rubber he filled the root with halfway down the tooth.

I don't remember feeling anything break off though. I don't remember finding anything hard in my mouth or my food. It might have happened while I slept, but I don't recall feeling it when I brushed my teeth in the morning.

I'm normally hypersensitive about this sort of thing too. If I get a tiny piece of hard gristle or bone in my food, I worry that it's really a tooth breaking up in my mouth. I will obsessively poke around in my mouth until I'm sure everything is where it's supposed to be.

I don't know how bad this is, but I have some idea. He might be able to plant a filling there, but I doubt it, given the size it would have to fit. I suspect a crown would be the best solution, since they carve a lot of the tooth away to put one of those on anyway, but there's no way I can afford a crown right now. Besides, he can't crown it until at least a month or two after the root canal. He has to make sure there's no infection or abscess or anything first.

And I can't leave this for too long or the rubber might deteriorate or pop right out.

Damn it!

Spider-Man, by the way, totally rocks. Screw Ebert and his complaints about the effects. So they don't look one hundred per cent real. It's a comic book! Yeesh!

I lost a bunch of my Sea-Monkeys today.

I don't know what happened. Yesterday they were all fine and happy and stuff. Today the water was cloudy and over half of them were little Sea-Monkey corpses on the bottom. I think I might have fed them too much yesterday or something. I hope the rest of the little buggers make it.

Yeah, I'm a big mushpot, I know. I get all worked up over a bunch of tiny brine shrimp that together couldn't make up one good bite's worth.

Still, I like the little critters, and get a little grin every time I look at them cavorting in their little Martian-landscaped dome.

I can always say they're defective and send away for more eggs (Sea-Monkeys are guaranteed for two years) but I still don't like the idea of them all dying on me.

Stupid Sea-Monkeys.

On TV: Not sure how we're going to survive the whole season-ender night on Sunday. The X-Files Series Finale starts at six, followed by the Simpsons season finale at 8, and then the three-hour end of Survivor: Marquesas (the two-hour final, and the one-hour reunion. I have to watch it to. I'm an addict). It's a good thing it's grocery weekend, because I can buy the goodies for a socked-in TV-fest.

And maybe we'll tape 'The Cosby Show: A Look Back' for another day.

One Year Ago: The hiatus continues. I think I was taking my free job education classes around now.

Mom Rating: 1 out of 5. Mom doesn't like more bad news on my teeth.

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Take me home, big fella