Aside from losing your car in the car park, walking around with your skirt caught in your Bridget Jones knickers in public or having spinach in your teeth when you’re talking to someone hot, what are your biggest fears now you’re getting older?
Mine is still the dentist, in spite of my propensity for ALWAYS having spinach caught in my teeth whenever I talk to someone ‘hot’.

In my experience, going to the dentist is worse than getting on the scales after three bags of Snickers Pods.
Before we moved, I used to see this lovely dentist who had a poster of a map of the world on the ceiling above his torture chair – I think it was supposed to distract you from the pain.
It didn’t, of course.
But luckily he took pity on me. He obviously came to the conclusion that using the screeching, scraping drill that made my insides somersault and my nerves jangle, (rendering me completely irrational), was actually a potential health and safety issue, and so he settled for just picking away at my tartar with the the mini pickaxe thing.
The only reason I went to the dentist at all was to be a good role model to the kids. It still astounds me the level of sacrifice us parents put up with for their kids.
I hate my teeth now. When I look in the mirror at my old bird teeth these days, I shudder to think of the money my father parted with to get me braces in the days when braces were still avant-garde.
And I did have straight, model teeth….for a while.
But as my body changed shape so did my jaw, and then my teeth moved and created all these gaps and gum pockets, and irritating food crevices.
A huge part of my daily exercise regime is spent picking food out of my teeth – it’s really attractive.
Obviously, I thoroughly vetted my new dentist before I allowed him anywhere near my phobia last week ie. I told the receptionist that I became psychotic in the dentist chair and then asked her directly if they still wanted my money.
I let NC go in first, because I figured that witnessing her pain might alleviate some of mine.
When they gave me the new patient form, where I had to mark on a scale of one to ten if I was going to enjoy the experience or shit my pants, I marked 10.
So he had been warned, before I dragged my feet into his chamber.
The check up part was the usual bitch fest about the state of my teeth? What happened to positive reinforcement? And what the fuck is an occlusal or oclusal watch anyway? I think he was just trying to impress me with his fancy schmancy dental school vocab.
Then, without warning, he brandished the pickaxe in front of my face and started gauging between my teeth – I’m still not sure if he was trying to test the pain threshold of my gums or to search for left-over Mussaman Curry.
My gagging reflex is probably my best reflex these days, but it can prove problematic at the dentist. I mean, I gag when I put the parking ticket in my mouth for those few seconds between entering a car park and parking my car.
So having to keep my mouth open for something heinous is awkward. As the old man knows.
I gagged when he did the check up, I gagged when he did the X Rays and then I gagged again when the dentist’s assistant pushed that sluicing tube a millimetre too far down my throat.
When he suggested doing a ‘clean’, that was all my body needed to spasm, shut down and lose complete control of my bladder.
In the word association game, we all know that ‘clean’ is synonymous with that scraper thing which has a particularly odorous whine that harmonizes so nicely with nerve pain.
I took a rain check. I don’t need to spend $100 on pain when Kurt can provide it for free.
What’s your biggest fear?
Yes it wasn’t until my late teens that i realsed my mum is terrified of spiders. We used to have a huntsman spider in our house that mum and dad called “sammy the spider” to try allay our fears. When we moved we wanted to take Sammy with us!!!!! Dad caught him in a jar and dumped him in the garden, and when we moved, the first big huntsman to make an appearance was “Sammy.”:… lol My mum was very brave to not shriek and run screaming every time Sammy appeared.. lol
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I couldn’t have done that either. It’s taken me eight years not to hyperventilate when I see a Huntsman, but I couldn’t cohabit with one. What a great role model your mum is then, unlike me.
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Hahahahahahahahahha. Well, I’m not as scared of spiders as I could be, but I still make my husband catch them and either kill them or throw them outside… preferably over the shitty neighbours fence… (the one with the barking dog. I’m sure you sympathise on that note!)
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Oh, definitely! I’m in the early stages of planning what exactly I’m going to do to the neighbours next door when we leave! Bitter, much?
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Hahahahahahahhahahah MWAHAHAHAHAH BWAHAHAHAHAH
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I have several fears related to ageing, all of them shallow, all of them involving me looking awful. One is leaving the house with lipstick on my teeth or parsley (can’t eat tabouli nowadays). Luckily my daughter points this out but then I often leave the house without her in tow…
I share your horror of the dentist and dread it more now that I need more work. Even a routine teeth clean kills me. I am regularly reminded of ‘Marathon Man’, where Dustin Hoffman is tortured by a mad dentist in the form of Laurence Olivier 🙂
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OMG, Tabouli is the worst! I feel your pain because I absolutely love it. They are giving me injections for my next cleans at VAST expense.
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Oh Lousia you are a woman after my own … *phobias* ha ha … and I am amazed to find someone who also gags at the momentary holding of those carpark tickets between my lips HA HA … Anna
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Yeah, what’s that all about? Can be quite awkward actually…
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Well since I will be 39 on Wednesday this is a perfect question. My first one is loosing my memory. I have issues so bad from the chemo and my hysterectomy. Seriously I have a three second memory, of course my husband thinks its bs so I am making him with me to my oncologist so she can tell him lol. The other is getting spider veins on the back of my legs! That’s the one body part I like lol.
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The memory goes anyway, I’m afraid to tell you. I have lists for everything – even lists for my lists! You have to work out serious organisation processes, otherwise you end up going to the bin or fridge to look for keys!
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