Two things have I found.
1) You can never pay Gary enough compliments.
2) You can never give Gary enough sympathy.
Poor baby had his first root canal today. I thoughtfully have never had a root canal. If I were to have had a root canal it would spoil everything, because Gary would have had to tell me HIS root canal was horrific, and MY root canal must have been some defective con-artist SHAM root canal because I could NEVER HAVE TOLERATED such agonizing pain.
At some point during the preliminary exam, the dentist took a diminutive silver hammer and pinged at his sore tooth. He screamed. She did it again (just to make sure) and he screamed again so hideously it made the dentist laugh. I sympathize with the dentist, because Gary in pain is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It's (giggling) just so over the top (laughing)! You just think he must be exaggerating it, and then after you realize he isn't ... well, it's still funny.
Because I know I am such an sympathetic, heartless cow I make a special effort to baby him when he's had a traumatic experience like having his...
"...mouth VIOLATED! They just went in there and pulled out the living part of the tooth! It was like A TOOTH ABORTION!"
Yes, honey ... It's awful ... Poor thing ... I hope I never have to go through that.
Get a bridge, have a root canal in a tooth under the bridge.
Good times.
Posted by: Friend #3 | March 28, 2007 at 11:00 PM
When I was still married to Xman, he threw out his back. Really badly. I couldn't stop laughing. I couldn't look at him without laughing. When he couldn't bend over to put his clothes on, I laughed while getting him to step into his tightie whities.
The fact that he had been physically abusive to me several times might have something to do with that. Either that or I'm just a heartless bitch. Heh heh.
Posted by: Becs | March 29, 2007 at 05:04 AM
Men can't take pain. This post, was as usual, HILARIOUS:) Thanks for making me laugh.
Posted by: Autumn | March 29, 2007 at 08:46 AM
The one I live with? He has an actual chronic disease, for which he will have to take meds for the rest of his life, or he'll die. While I'm very sympathetic to that, and worry a lot about what would happen if we had a scary Katrina-like disaster here in the midwest, he also whines frequently about some problem or another (headache, fatigue, etc) and when I tell him to suck it up like I do, he pulls the disease card (because he has a disease and I don't, he always is the sick one).
My sympathy only goes so far, and have been known to throw things at him just to see how sick he really is (if he ducks or makes a miraculous 9th inning catch, he's fine).
Posted by: Christy | March 29, 2007 at 10:49 AM
He's a man, isn't he? They can NOT tolerate pain. Any illness they have is way worse than anything you've ever had or WILL ever have. My husband recently pulled a muscle in his shoulder and actually compared it to the reconstructive foot surgery followed by 4 months of rehabilitation that I went through. Before that, he compared his vascectomy to me having carried and delivered our two children. In both cases, his pain and agony was MUCH worse than mine.
Posted by: Melissa | March 29, 2007 at 04:17 PM
I heard it said somewhere, if men were the ones to give birth, the human race would have died out millennia ago.
Posted by: Friend #3 | March 29, 2007 at 08:22 PM
I am so glad to know there are others who suffer as I do.
Posted by: TheQueen | March 29, 2007 at 10:56 PM
Dude. Tell Gary that I had my first root canal four years ago during the Dental Drama of 2003, which involved, among other things: a tooth extraction; general anaesthesia; major surgery, the star of which was a titanium implant IN MY JAW; waiting for a YEAR for the bone to grow around the implant so that the dentist could install the porcelain veneer (and by "install," I mean "jam it into my upper jaw using full force while I braced myself against the chair"); and, yes, that root canal. I didn't cry ONCE.
(Okay, I cried once, but not out of pain. I cried when I first looked at myself after the dentist had pulled out the dead front tooth, because I looked like a complete and utter Cletus. A female Asian Cletus. Now tell me *that* isn't reason enough to cry.)
[And yes, Female Asian Cletus is totally going to be the next name of my band.]
Posted by: Catherine | March 31, 2007 at 10:49 PM