Photo Prompt Monday:Church Picnic

For the very first time, I am joining in with a few other bloggers in PhotoPrompt Monday,
hosted by mybabyjohn/Delores.  The idea is to look at the photo which one of the participants
(this week, Susan, at the contemplativecat) found to inspire others.  Then write something--a poem, a memory, fiction, whatever, on your own blog...and of course, link up. 

Since this photo prompts a memory that is as close to me as my teeth,  the thing I chose to write could be aptly titled, "Some Days Life is the Pits."

                                                 Source: Photobucket (can't get link to work; sorry)


You see a church picnic.
I see a root canal.

Back up the truck and let me explain.

Church picnics are supposed to be events of
pleasure and honesty.
Most are.
But the one I attended in 2007, at my parents' invitation,
was an event of
pain and dishonesty.

I went through the line
And everything was fine...
Knife, fork, spoon, napkin
Watermelon, hamburger, macaroni salad
Veggies and chips and dips

And olives. 

Spanish olives which I adore.

I took five or six from a jar labeled "pitted olives"
meaning they are supposed to have no pits.
Truth in advertising and all that.
My mom had brought the olives
because she also loves them.
Sitting across from her, I enjoyed my burger
and  macaroni salad,  veggies, and then,
saving he best for last just before the watermelon,
I ate an olive.
Yum.
A second olive.
Double yum.
A third, and then 
I popped the fourth into my mouth
and bit down.

CRACK! ZING! POW! STARS! and maybe an unChristian
word that has four letters and is not "love" stopped just
short of  jumping from my brain to my tongue.

My tooth! My tooth! I was in too much pain to talk.
I jumped up with my napkin and scurried off
spit it all out--olive, pit and and tooth pieces where no one
would be grossed out.  Or if they were, too bad.

But of course Mama followed me and asked
what was wrong.
"Ah bwoke ma toof!" I said, holding my lower jaw with my left hand,
 lips making that walleye fish expression, no doubt. A walleye with furrowed brows.

"You broke your tooth? How?" Mama asked.
"On an ahwive."
"But they were pitted! There shouldn't have been any pits."
"Dere wunt in de fust free or four," I muttered. "Ah need a ibwupwofen or sumpin."

My mom, ever  the nurse, carries a veritable pharmacy on her.
Her motto has always been, "Better to have it and not need it
than to need it and not have it."

Well, I needed an endodontist. Did she have one of those in her purse?

She produced a little red Advil pill and I asked for four.
"Four! Zoanna Marie! That's 800 milligrams!"
"Oh, den give me eight.  1600's a  toxic lebbel and  ah'm dyin' anyway."

She gave me four and wasn't laughing. I was...sort of.  Either that or start bawling.



In the ensuing days, I had more dental work done that I'd had in "40 some-odd years."

I blogged about it after the deed was done.  

My root canal went fine. I got really worked up over nothing, especially that morning .I called so many people but all I got were answering machines except for my friend Barb in KS. The funny thing is, while waiting for her cell to connect , I got to listen to her music. The song? Lean on Me! Cracked me up. (Thought of Briana!) The other funny thing is what I read in Psalms that morning, somewhere around Psalm 128. Remembering that I broke my tooth on an olive pit, and vowing to never eat one again unless I cut into 12 pieces first (cuz I DO love olives and don't want to give them up) here's what I read when I opened to my "scheduled" passage.

"And your children shall be like olive vines around your table..." It made me laugh, which did good like medicine.I said, "Lord, it's true, my children are a pain at times....but I still love them!"

Maybe God wanted to make me laugh, or maybe I am supposed to treat my children with more care. Or both. Either way, it was a perfectly funny thing to read the day of a scary root canal.
 

So that's my chuch picnic memory.
To this day,  when someone says the words
"church picnic" or "olive,"
my tongue finds the hole in my mouth where that root canal was.
That's right, Was.
It lasted less than four years, that crown, and then cracked again, and no root canal could be done again. I need a bridge or an implant. 

From olive pit to money pit.

 All because of a church picnic. Or would that be a church "pit-nic"?