Drooling Dental Delights
June 12th, 2008. Filed under: Thursday's Travels.
Normally I’m not too crazy about going to the dentist. I’ve been thinking about making a dental appointment and that led my thoughts to an appointment at my dentist in Cozumel, Mexico. Another nurse and I had back to back appointments that day. Connie and I scheduled early appointments so that we could go to our favorite restaurant for lunch. I don’t remember what we had done that morning, but the aftermath was unforgettable. Connie and I had our dental work done on opposite sides of our mouths. Think mirror images.
While walking from the dentist office to Gerardo’s we discovered some interesting ways the numbness of our mouths affected us. For one thing, it made talking and laughing interesting. It’s amazing just how much slobber a person’s mouth can produce. It’s not something a person notices as a rule. Numbness can change that. It all wants to run out one side of your mouth. Ask Connie. She knows. My left side was numb. Her right side was numb. It was like looking in a mirror and watching myself drool and laugh and then drool some more.
So, now we are at Gerardo’s, laughing and acting like fools with our crazy mouths. Fortunately, Joseph was working that day and seated us in the courtyard where we had a bit more privacy. Joseph was more than our waiter since we ate there so often. He was more like friend and family, so he had a good time with it all. Now we both wanted to order the garlic shrimp, but the dentist had said liquids only for lunch. What do you think two ship nurses sitting at the best restaurant in town with instructions to maintain a liquid diet would order for lunch? I don’t know about you, but we don’t drink the water in Mexico. Connie decided we needed a margarita.
There are several things you need to know about me and margaritas. I was a ship’s nurse who hated to be on duty while in Cozumel because the passengers felt it was their solemn duty to try to drink up all the tequila on the island. They would take party boat trips during the day and drink in the sun and heat. Then they would go to Carlos and Charlies and drink tequila half the night before coming back onboard sicker than dogs. Cozumel night was not my favorite time to be on call. Second thing. These babies are not served in a normal size glass at Gerardo’s. You are drinking out of a small mixing bowl on a stem. They are huge.
Since I couldn’t come up with an alternative, Connie won that one. Okay, now we are drooling and looking at our drinks. First major problem was how to keep the straw in our mouths so we could proceed with lunch. That was solved by holding the straw in place with one hand and pinching the lips closed with the other long enough to suck up our nourishment. It didn’t take me long to figure out why the glass rims had salt on them. That stuff tastes awful! The salt is there so you can hurry up and get the tequila taste out of your mouth. Funny how I used up more salt than Connie did. I think I might have had to use some of her salt, too. We had to work at this carefully. If we looked at each other, it was so darned funny. It’s difficult to hold the straw, pinch the lips together, slurp it up and laugh all at the same time. What was so amazing was how much better it tasted after I finally got about half of that stuff down. Heck, we decided since we had to suffer and miss our garlic shrimp, we might as well have a second. Strange thing about the second one. It tasted good from the beginning.