Thank fuck for Ibuprofen in Adventures in paradise

Fuck I hope I’m not getting a stye. I haven’t had one before but I’ve heard about them, and the corner of my right eye has been sore today for some reason, and it would make sense, I guess.

It’s been a pretty stressful week, given the tooth situation. I have no idea how I got through my shifts at work, and other workmates were giving me the shits again ergh. Not all of them, there are some hard workers but fuck me, when the management are saying shit like “I can’t be seen doing hard work, because then it’ll be expected of me all the time,” and getting up other managers when she sees them doing work, I wanna go and bitch-slap someone.

So, of course, to add insult to injury, I had a customer yesterday who wanted to order 3 PALLETS of soft drink - ie, coke, solo and lemonade cans - ie. 156 boxes all up, which he has to order to do so, and then there are all these stupid rules how you can only purchase and take 24 at a time, otherwise head office picks up on it and we get a phone call, so I got the guy’s details and his order he wanted and wrote a note for my manager to order the stock.

Yes, lazy-ass manager to order the stock. I’m dreading this already. It’s like I’m looking into the invisible crystal call and this bloke rocking up in a few weeks time to collect his stock, and it won’t be there.
I can fucking guarantee it. Lazy-bitch will ignore the note AND me reminding her (which I will do this week when I see her) and she’ll say something like “I’m not ordering it” blah blah blah.
The problem is, this guy said he will pick up the stock on March 8th, which is a few weeks away, so I can’t order it right now cos it’ll take up too much space in our stock room.
And guess who’s away the first week of March for Mardi Gras? Yup. Me.
Errrrrr, this isn’t gonna be good. A leopard never changes it’s spots.
The only good thing is that I won’t be there for this customer to yell at me when his stock hasn’t arrived haha, cos he took note of my name-tag and all.
If this bitch throws me under the bus, I’ll throw her under a real one.

So anyway, I know I’m jumping to conclusions. I had to laugh today when the Inventory Manager told me that lazy-mole wants an ASM role. LMFAO. Christ help us. He actually told her, “If you can’t even lift a box of produce, you aren’t gonna make it as an ASM” Haha!

My tooth has been on and off with the pain. Right now, it’s behaving itself, but I’m afraid to talk too soon. I’ve been on that much Ibuprofen that I will like Courtney Love will appear at my door soon asking for some of my fix. It’s been a lifesaver! But, I’m not on any right now, strangely enough.
I had Subway for lunch today and there must’ve been a seed in the bread or something and even though I’ve been trying to eat on the good side of my mouth, I bit down and had a SOURING pain through right through that tooth. I almost swore I front of everyone in the lunch room.

That’s not as embarrassing as when I had to answer a phone call at work this week (you know, because actual management can’t do anything to save themselves).
I think it’s because of the stress of that dentist quoting me $2400 and me actually forking out $151 just to be TOLD that, compiled with another rough week at work (thankfully the acting store manager atm is a blessing and works hard!), but I answered the phone on line 51 (which is what the call over the PA was for) so I hit *51 and waited to see if the timer on the phone started, which (I thought) it did. “Hello, Matt speaking, how can I help?”
It was only then that I’d even realized that a) no-one had replied on the 0ther end of the phone) and b)that the store’s music had stopped playing, that I had the dreaded feeling gradually swarm over me that I had in fact… just announced that over the store’s PA system. Not at the START of the sentence, right at the end of it.
I slammed the phone down out of panic. The store’s music started up again.
OH, My, GOD. That did NOT just happen. Oh my fucking God.
And, you know, it’s only a casual SATURDAY AFTERNOON when the store was swarming with people and families upstairs.
I wanted to crawl into a hole.
Surprisingly, I didn’t get paid out about it LOL. I think my workmates were just being nice though. You know, and sniggering in their heads things like, ‘What a clueless moron!’. I’ve only worked there for like 5 years all up. Still don’t know how to work a damn work phone.

I didn’t care anyway, really. I was embarrassed yeah, but my tooth was bringing me back to reality.
I filled in a web form for a different dentist to contact me during business hours, so I’m hoping for a call back from these guys probably tomorrow, and I hope they can get me in. It’ll be a similar cost for a consult, but at least I’ll get a clean/scale thrown in with these guys, which I know I badly need, so that’ll be something. I’m just hoping they’ll give me a root canal quote WAY cheper than Ms-Ripoff-Ripofferson up the road.

I’ve even been looking at those thai dental websites and web forums and having a look at what others have said who have had it done. I find it fascinating that there’s a couple of websites actually targeted at the international dental trade. Not only that, the websites all list the exact costs of EVERYTHING. None of this Australian bullshit like, “Well we can’t give you a quote until we see you in the chair.”
Ummm, funny that! These guys sure as hell can!

For the price Ms-Ripoff-Ripofferson quoted me, I could not only get my tooth fixed, but I could get quite a decent holiday and accommodation in Thailand for the same price! Probably cheaper! The quote on one website lists root canals and list three options - front tooth, pre-molar and molar prices. That’s it! All have the price listed next to them, and the most expensive one is 1/5th the price of the quote I was given here.
Given the flight cost, it’d probably work out around the same, I dunno, but it is a lot of effort to go to. Maybe I could claim it on travel insurance? Haha. I can’t believe I’m even thinking of this being a possibility. I’ve thought that maybe I should just miss Mardi Gras and do that instead. I’ve done Mardi Gras heaps of times, but I’ve never been to Thailand.
It’s up in the air I suppose. Right now, I’m gonna see how this other dentist goes. They are a chain rather than a lone business, so I’ll see. If I get another quote similar to the one I have, then forget it.
There is the dentist right outside my work, but he doesn’t have a website or anything and seems pretty old-school, but sometimes that can be a good thing. Google reviews on that guy are 4.8 out of 5, but there are only 6 reviews. Still, one said he didn’t even charge one guy.
I’ve also asked a few workmates what dentists they recommend. Apparently there’s one in Shailer Park, which is a bit out of the way, but hey if it can save me a few grand, then I’d be all for it.
I just can’t keep forking out $150 each time for a consult/x-ray etc.

I went to the Queer Film Festival last night and this afternoon, for the first two of my three films I’ve bought tickets for. The film I saw last night was “Into The Greyscale” and was about a married straight guy with a kid who ended up having confused feelings for an openly gay work colleague and hooking up with him. The film actually starts out boring as batshit and I spent most of it rolling my eyes to start with as it was just him laying in his bed and showing off his bare ass (gay audience, of course that makes sense) but eventually it picks up a bit when all is revealed and my favourite part of the movie is when his wife is explaining to him why she loves him after he’s been caught out. It was really beautiful writing and acting, I thought.
A group of older gay guys sat near me, as I’d moved along to the end of the row because I didn’t know if the session had sold out, so was being nice. The guy right next to me struck up a conversation but I just wasn’t in the mood - ie. my tooth in pain etc, but he asked what films I was seeing and I couldn’t remember the name of the one I’m seeing next week, so he got out his program and went through them all until I recognised it. Geez man, are you trying to stalk me or what? Just a bit what it felt like. It didn’t help that one of the guys in his group, next to him, goes, “Ooooo, who’s your friend?” to him as they sat down near me.
Ummm yeah, no. LOL. Apparently he was seeing 15 films. Fuck!

Thank fuck for Ibuprofen, and I hope my eye being a bit sore is nothing. I hate how stress can have these stupid effects on the body so easily.