Captive Brains

Coming as we do from Australia there is much to be found that is different in our new surroundings and culture. Some good… some not so good.

For example sewerage pipes and restaurants. Sometimes it seems in Taiwan that there is some obligatory local council regulation that requires that any sewerage pipes in the vicinity of the front entrance to a restaurant must have some kind of fault or defect.

The purpose being to ensure that the smell of the aforementioned sewerage outlet is clearly and unmistakably detectable to the human nose.

Disturbingly, after a few years of being exposed to this, one begins to develop a kind of strange mental association between the smell of raw sewerage and the presence of food. “Hmmm… smells like shit, must be some good eating around here somewhere!”

Of course in the case of the sewerage outfall / restaurant presence closest to my house it is not such a strange occurrence because it’s a McDonald’s and the whole “poo equals food” thought process makes more sense… but I think you get my drift.

Anyway the other day my wife decided that I needed to go to the dentist. Of course what that really meant was that my wife felt guilty about not having gone to the dentist herself for a while so in her mind somehow this wrong would be corrected by her sending me to the dentist.

Having been married for many years now and knowing very well to choose my fights wisely I obediently agreed to go to satisfy the requirement that someone had to go to the dentist to balance the great dental cosmic karma that oversees such things.

Going to our dentist is a little like going to your mother’s house. Regardless of the fact that I am a 50 year old man who has fully proven himself able to support his family comfortably as soon as I sit in that chair I am instantly transformed into a ten year old child incapable of cleaning my own teeth. My dentist is a nice lady… but very stern and very serious about teeth.

Apparently my crime this time was that I have spent a lifetime incorrectly brushing my teeth… who knew? The result of these years of abuse was that the gums were being pushed back and that I would need to have reconstruction work done.

When any dentist starts talking “reconstruction” I start to worry with thoughts of injections, massive excavations being done and a total loss of dignity as I dribble and mumble incomprehensibly on my back.

So, an appointment was made for dreaded reconstruction and it was decided by my wife that the thirteen reconstructions could all be done at once by organizing a double appointment.

Now here’s the part that is just so cool about Taiwan.

I arrived for the work. It involved each tooth being prepared and the dentist applying a veneer of of some substance to each gum margin. She then had to set it and polish it off to a smooth surface. The whole process took about half an hour and the work was perfect.

Imagine the cost in almost any western country of that kind of dental work.

In Taiwan the receptionist apologised for the cost explaining that after all it was a double appointment. The damage? $200.00… no I am not talking U.S.$200.00 nor am I talking Australian $200.00 I mean $200 Taiwan. That translates into about U.S. $10.00!

You gotta love a country that comes with a dental plan!

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Francis is a cat trainer, a highly successful one, which has gotten him onto the A list for charity functions attended by very old ladies with lots of money but decreasing amounts of time…

Here’s Francis’ letter from an octogenarian gala in Bangkok:

Today I’ve been out and about. Went to a concert again this afternoon. This was attended by the big & blue haired ladies of high society – and yours truly. About a hundred of them, I was the only swinging dick in the place. Probably the only one who wasn’t bothered about soiling the adult undergarments after the mushy buffet spread. The concert was a hodge-podge of gawd knows what kind of sappy Thai songs from an era even before their time. Prehistoric, in other words.

There I was, dying in my seat. What was I doing there, sandwiched between two of the oldest relics I’ve seen in a while? I was interacting with my clientele, all of them very old and powdered. I think I saw moth balls in their ears. I told myself had to get through this thing without going unconscious – I’m a robust snorer. I was also only two rows from the front and the only whitey, male, non-octogenarian, and there were cameras trained on me…

I spent the first two hours mentally recounting this morning’s funnys, redesigning my kids’ bathroom, balancing the checkbook – whatever I could do to stop myself from a self-inflicted case of strangulation on my own tongue. Finally, the audience’s Prozac must have been starting to wear off because the people near me began clapping and singing along. The coiffed and bejeweled performers began aiming the microphone at audience members. No! Not a sing-along, Karaoke style…

The band started up with some old American favorites and I realized that things might go from bad to apocalyptic very soon. The grandma divas in the next rows began trying to catch my eye, the wireless microphone was brought out, and beads of sweat formed on my upper lip and brow.

I had to get out of here, I had to run.

I spent the next 20 minutes shrinking in my chair, chanting quietly, “I’m invisible” like Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man. It worked. Mercifully, the MC introduced the last singer and the final song and I knew I was out of the woods. After all, what were the chances of me being dragged up on the stage for the Green, Green Grass of Home, especially when it was being performed so uniquely? I let out a deep sigh of relief, and quieted my trembling guts – I had made it through this concert without making an ass of myself…

No! Oh my god, they’d started into a spontaneous medley! Halfway through the first chorus of I Am A Women In Love my relief turned to anxiety, but it was a false alarm. “I am a woe-man in ruv, annai do iny ting do getchew into my hut” echoed around the auditorium – and without my help. I spent the last 5 minutes of the concert choking, coughing, praying for my own pair of diapers so I could wet myself…

Well, I made it out alive to the dinner and was rewarded for my efforts when our table was served a bottle of 1963 Baron Philippe Rothschild Paulic. Apparently there was some concern whether the alcohol could be safely consumed with whatever meds were being used to make it through the fading twilight of the days, but that was okay with me and I drank the whole bottle and thought how lucky I was to be still young enough to think this was all amusing.

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