Roots of a smile

Root Canal.  Ugh.  Two terrible words.  Even apart they are not pretty, one is too round and the other jars with its sudden syllables but together they are enough to cause a grown man to cry (I think my major issue is that the long syllable followed by two short syllable construction of the words brings back memories of Greek poetry which is broken up into sections called ‘feet’ in which one long syllable followed by two short syllables are known as a ‘dactyl’ the Greek word for finger.  I hear ‘root canal’ but what I really hear is my Greek tutor standing at the front of the class getting us all to say ‘dum di di, dum di di, dum di di’ over and over again, like a class of demented Alice in Wonderland groupies).  This was the situation that faced me on Monday, no not Greek class, that feels like many years ago now, before children, no, the situation that I had been building myself up for all the previous week was having a root canal.  An hour long operation followed by a day’s worth of pain and misery, of course I dealt with it in my cheerful way, spending most of the weekend moaning and then spending the hours following the operation either asleep or grumbling about how it felt sore.