In the Podiatrist’s Dental Chair
For more than a decade I paid Doctor Carey to work on my teeth whenever one or more of them caused me pain in the form of toothache.
Man, but this life is hard! You know how much trouble and pain I’ve had ever since I was a kid? A father who beat us until he cleared off to the US, never to be heard of again, and a mother who drank herself to death. Then my first marriage. What a disaster that was! Two kids and nine years later she divorced me, and I can’t say I blame her. First I lost all of her savings and the money her father left her. That was when my business went under and the creditors grabbed everything we had. And when she caught me messing around for a second time it was the final straw.
It was good that my present wife had a hysterectomy before we met. At least we don’t have children to bring up. Things were kind of alright for a while. We both had quite decent jobs, she at the guest lodge and me on the whale boat. Then along came Covid and tourism collapsed. We drew unemployment benefits for as long as we could. She was lucky to get a job at the supermarket in Gansbaai but the hours were long and the pay half what she used to get. As for me, I eventually gave up wasting time and money hunting for non-existent work and became a house husband.
I had to do all the cooking, cleaning and washing, and I was garden boy as well. It was not too bad at first, there being just the two of us, but then disaster struck. Her mother arrived on the scene.
You can read the rest of this short story here.
To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.
This is my writer's blog and it's a pleasure to have your company. You’ll see that the site is designed to showcase my writing.
View ProfileXplorio is your local connection allowing you to find anything and everything about a town.
Read MoreFor more than a decade I paid Doctor Carey to work on my teeth whenever one or more of them caused me pain in the form of toothache.
We arrived in Joburg on Friday 17 May 2024, and returned to Pearly Beach on Monday the 27th of the same month and year, which makes the trip an 11-day odyssey.
In my early twenties I went on a mission to take a drink in every bar in Cape Town.
We do not inherit the Earth; we borrow it from future generations.
The relative who died was my wife's youngest of two sisters.
Two weeks after the Cardiac Ablation, which was supposed to correct my Atrial Flutter, I experienced a mild attack, and then, about ten days later, a more serious episode that lasted for over two hours.