Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on September 16, 2008

If you didn’t know (from constant reminders and my drunken Twittering), this past Sunday was my birthday. I’m now officially in my 30s and celebrated the most anti-climactic birthday ever. I mean, really, the only thing I decided I could say about my 31st birthday was that I am now only four years away from becoming eligible to be President of the United States. Will you vote for me?

Normally my birthday is my favorite day of the year. As you might have guessed, because I am a blogger who shares my personal stories on the internet because I am a famewhore, I kind of like attention. So nothing is better than a whole day ALL ABOUT ME!

This year, not so much. One, I’m starting to feel older and had a few “what am I doing with my life? I should have accomplished more by now” panic moments in the last few weeks. On top of it, being unemployed, I haven’t much felt like partying and celebrating. I’ve felt like drinking, but have not felt like showering.  So it wasn’t really my desire to go out and celebrate. Which is why I didn’t send out the evite until a few days before and why most people had plans and couldn’t make it.

But I went. And I had a great time. It was a small party, but we had a good time last Friday in advance celebration of my birthday.

My mom and my friends braved the HORRIBLE rain and drank some libations with me and put up with my drunken slurring and occasional spitting.

After the first bar, my friend Shelly and I headed to a bar in my neighborhood and we caught up and got into a discussion about her situation with a guy she had met recently who had not called back. He happens to be a Chicago cop, so when a police car rolled by the bar, we decided to beckon them to come in. No, really. I was waving at them to come in. They just thought we were waving and probably drunk. So they waved back and they were feeling really good because well, I’m stacked.

So what would a normal person do after that? They would just laugh at the situation. Not me. I was drunk. I blew them a kiss.

(Re-enacted for the purposes of hilarity.)

Sunday was my actual birthday and I had plans to go to a townie bar on the South Side with some of my friends from my old job to watch the Bears game. We drank A LOT of these buckets.

We watched the Bears lose, stayed way too long and too many “locals” bought me shots. It is a good thing I do not have a job to go to. Because I just got silly drunk.

And then I drank so many bomb shots (Cherry Bombs and Jager Bombs), too many Coors Lights and then decided it was a good idea to give my phone number to a guy they call White Rob. Why do they call him that, you ask? Because White Rob is white and they don’t want to confuse him with Black Rob, who is black. All who probably spend too much time at the same bar.

I’m pretty sure my friend Ruby and I are going to take a break from this place for awhile. We overindulged and are too close to becoming regulars. And that is a goal to save for my 32nd birthday.

See the rest of the drunken debauchery photo evidence here.

Category: Age is Just a Number, Hooch Hilarity | 24 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on September 15, 2008

So I was going to fill you all in on the shenanigans I got up to this weekend for my birthday, including trying to drink the same quantity of beer as the amount of rain that fell this weekend in Chicago. (It was A LOT. Half of Northern Illinois is flooded and major expressways are closed because of standing water. It rained for literally 48 hours straight.) (So, that would be a lot of beer I drank this weekend, is what I’m saying.)

Anyway, but that post is going to have to wait. Because today, I called the dentist. And any of you that follow me on Twitter know that it did not end well.

If you haven’t read my other dentist horror stories, let me just say that this dentist is bad. I’m seriously questioning why this particular dentist has a license and why other people go there. And I’m sure you’re all asking, why have you been going there so long? (I’ve been going for almost 3 years.) And I realized today that when my original dentist left the office, which I wasn’t ever informed about, that’s when things went down hill. I liked the old dentist. She was young and hip and liked to talk about drinking beer and pop culture. I need to go find her.

I’ve always hated the hygienists, though.

So this morning I call to see if I can get an appointment and the receptionist says she can get me in at 3 PM. So I take it. There is no reason to avoid the inevitable any longer. It is getting worse. The pain is worse and worse every day and lingers if I don’t take Advil every four hours.

I get to my appointment early because I figure they are squeezing me in. And then I wait. And I wait some more. And I hear them talking that “Kristin Johnson is waiting, but she can wait.” And then I see the bitchy Russian hygienist, who I can’t understand what she says, that I hate the most, peek out the window that is on the door that separates the waiting area from the actual exam rooms. I see her fucking peek her face and look at me and then go back and tell Bitchy McDentist that “yes, it is that Kristin out there” and then they proceed to talk about me and I can HEAR IT! IT IS A SMALL OFFICE, DUMBASS.

Then, not two seconds later, I see Bitchy McDentist (whose name is Dr. Chen and seriously, they are off of Lincoln on the north side, DO NOT GO THERE) peek her little, stupid face out the window and full on stare at me. And then they make me wait more.

Look, I know I have not been a model patient. I question things because I’ve been going to the dentist a long time and have numerous procedures done. I’m not an idiot. I also question this Bitchy Dr. Chen a lot because I am not convinced that she is competent enough to do her job. There have been many times when she has asked questions out loud, to the hygienist or to no one in general, and really? That never gave me the most confidence.

On top of it, they have screwed things up. I spent more time at that dentist this summer because of their fuck ups and their miscommunication. And I’m not just going to sit there and let them do it. I am a squeaky wheel!

So I know they don’t like me. But they have to fix my mouth if they want to get paid and so the Russian hygienist can go buy Russian folk songs on iTunes.

After the staring and waiting (seriously, I didn’t get into the exam room until 3:20), they finally take me back and take an X-Ray. I say as little as possible because I JUST SAW YOU STARING AND HEARD YOU TALKING ABOUT ME, BITCHES!

Finally Worst Dentist Ever, Dr. Chen, comes in and starts asking questions in her heavily-accented, low-talking voice (not a good combination.) I tell her that it hurts, has really never been 100% since she put the crown on in July and it is getting progressively worse. So she taps on it with a metal thing-a-ma-bob and since it doesn’t hurt, she’s not sure what to do. AGAIN WITH HER OBVIOUS LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.

So then she says that when she put the crown on, she filled a pretty deep cavity and maybe (MAYBE?) there is some nerve damage that is causing some pain. So she “guesses” that I should probably have a root canal done. Because clearly the pain that I am telling you that I am in is irrelevant in this equation.

I tell her that she has to save the crown because I can’t spend more money on a crown that was just done. She says they can drill through it and fill it and I don’t have to pay for a new one. Which, nice to know.

Then I ask the seemingly $64 question – how come she didn’t notice this was an issue when she went in to fill the cavity? And listen, I asked it calmly (I promise. I swear on a keg of Old Style that I did not raise my voice) why if she spent so much time on that tooth just two months ago, how did she not know? I mean, the tooth wouldn’t even take the Novocaine she gave it and I was in pain and FELT ALL OF IT when she filled the tooth. That generally shows signs of infection or something pretty bad going on. Right? I mean if 4 shots of Novocaine don’t numb a tooth, I would venture to guess there is more than meets the eye.

This is where it got exciting. In the middle of me asking why she didn’t notice it then, she raises her meek little voice and shouted “LOOK! I TOLD YOU, THERE WAS SIGNIFICANT DECAY…” and then I cut her off. I was so pissed that she was yelling at me that I asked her to raise the chair back up and I got the hell out of there. I left my seat, threw off that little bib thingy and walked out. (See where the title comes in now?) I was so angry with these people that I was shaking when I left. That has never happened before to me.

I called back after I left to talk to the receptionist to get a copy of my records so I can take them someplace else. And I heard them laughing at me so I knew this was the best decision, albeit an immature one, I could have made.

Here’s my thing. I pay a lot of money, A LOT, to have a well-trained professional take care of my teeth. Your dentist shouldn’t make you cry, or laugh at you or give you the sense that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing. Least of all, a dentist or a doctor should never raise their voice at you. I’m sorry, that’s not part of the nearly $2000 I still owe for the craptastic job you’ve already done. Which, I’m now taking my sweet-ass time paying off.

So I’m going to a new dentist. I don’t care if I have to pay a little more out of pocket. I do not deserve to be treated like that. Seriously, tooth pain is already horrible enough.

:::

Also, I’m guest posting over here today. Go check it out.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, Dental DAMN, Rants & Rants | 51 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on September 12, 2008

What this post is about.

No, not being unemployed (although I showered today and went out to get my eyebrows waxed and to the library and then came home because the library is overwhelming if you don’t have a list of books you are looking for. So. Many. Books. Thankfully they have free WiFi, so I’m going to be there a lot.)

This post is about my tooth. That is KILLING me. And it happens to be one of the teeth I just had work done on TWO MONTHS AGO. One in which I paid a HEFTY sum to have a crown re-done on it and now it is fucking killing me and I don’t think I can avoid going back to the dentist.

This isn’t the tooth I had the root canal on. This is the one behind it, that has a lovely gold crown on it. The gold crown I paid FULL PRICE for, because I had reached my maximum with my dental insurance. The gold crown that sits upon a tooth that hurts and is sensitive to hot and cold of which I’m convinced is going to need its own root canal.

Here’s where I freak the fuck out and start hysterically sobbing.

1. Like I said, I had to pay full price for this crown. Because I reached my maximum, it is like not having dental insurance.
2. I had this crown put on 2 months ago. The day before I left for BlogHer. It is NEW.
3. My tooth could not have gone to hell in TWO MONTHS.
4. The dumbass dentist was rooting around in there, knew it was sensitive, but said it just needed a filling. I didn’t question her because I AM NOT A DENTIST.
5. I can’t wait until January to get this fixed.
6. Guess I know where my severance is going.
7. I am avoiding calling them because I’m pretty sure they can’t save the crown. So that means the $1000 I have paid for this one, ALL DOWN THE GOD DAMNED DRAIN.

*Cue the hysterical sobbing*

I know there are worse things in the world, but for once in the last year, I would like the right side of my jaw to not be in throbbing pain. I paid (and still owe) a lot of money to this dentist, the least they could do was do it right.

Now I’m at a crossroads. Because I have no dental insurance and my asshat dentist has all my files and knows the history, I am leaning towards going back to them. Because I’m hoping (nay, praying) they will cut me some kind of break. Because this is THEIR FAULT. I am determined of that fact. A tooth doesn’t rot in 2 months with a crown on it and I don’t eat candy like it is going out of style. This is so pre-existing. And they also let me pay off my balance at my own pace.

But on the other hand, I hate them. They make me cry. And I know going to a new dentist will require all the preliminary stuff of X-Rays, etc., things that will cost more money. And I just can’t have this cost any more money than it is already going to.

I would so love to know what I did to a dentist in a former life because the Dental Gods hate me.

And now back to my regularly-scheduled sobbing.

Category: Dental DAMN, The Luck of the Polish | 39 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on September 11, 2008

I really don’t have much to blog about. I’m trying to write about other things besides about how I’m unemployed and I don’t have a job and oh, have you heard? I am JOBLESS.

And that is all I can talk about. Because as a person who is currently “between opportunities”, I don’t do much during the day.  For instance, here is what I did today:

• Woke up around 10:30. Forcing myself to get out of bed because I could have slept until noon.
• I ate some cereal. (Take that Maggie Mason.)
• Read blogs.
• Checked my email.
• Read more blogs. (Seriously, it was my goal for the day. I started at almost 400 new posts this morning and now I’m down to 100. I read A LOT of blogs.)
• Watched some TV. Did you know Soap Net runs back to back episodes of The O.C. followed by back-to-back episodes of the OG 90210? My new unemployed life includes being on the couch disconnected from the world for 4 hours from 2-6 PM.
• This is the most boring blog post ever.
• I’m not sure I brushed my teeth.
• Oh, I did my laundry, so I had to leave the house.
• I guest posted here yesterday. (That’s probably more exciting. Go read that.)
• Have you guys seen that Bowflex commercial with that ginormous douchebag who talks about how he lost like 70 inches off his waist? You know the guy who is all “I gave all my fat clothes to my fat friends”? Let me tell you, there is not way that guy has friends.
• And also, Bowflex, that is the just the reason why I wouldn’t use your equipment. You should change your new tagline to “Bowflex: Turns you into a walking douchebag.”
• This post is why I’m forcing myself to leave the house tomorrow. And hopefully brush my teeth. For the sake of this blog and so that you people will come back to read when it isn’t CRAP anymore. I will shower for the people.

You are welcome.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Unemployment Line | 28 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on September 10, 2008

Thank you, all of you, for all your comments on yesterday’s post. I’m feeling a little better today. I think the fact I had to get up and shower and put on make-up and leave the house had a a lot to do with it. My mission is to make myself leave the house every day, even if I just take a walk. I think it will help my mood.

The interview today went well. I think. I don’t know anymore because the last job opportunity with the financial place really fucked with my head. I’m trying not to get too excited about it.

In the meantime, I decided that nothing would cheer me up more than looking at my Google search terms and writing a Bacon post.

(For those of you new here, Bacon is a folder. He answers all the weird search terms that people use to find my blog. Read more here.)

Happy 30th birthday. Age the just the number

First off, I’m only 30 for a few more days as my 31st birthday is on Sunday. (Gifts are welcome.) So thanks for the very belated birthday wish, random Google searcher. Bacon thinks you must be old and stupid because you don’t know how to type so he thinks you should “Shrivel.”

Dentist murdered in office

All Bacon will say that he has already given his statement about this to the police and he knows that Kristabella is innocent and will be proven so by a court of law.  And if she isn’t, really, can you blame her for her treatment by Dentist McDouche?

Hole in the bucket experiment

So, as I’m sure we’re all wondering, as Bacon is, how dumb you would have to be to not know the ending to that experiment? Bacon says even he, a piece of salty, cured meat, knows that with a hole in the bucket, whatever you put in, will come right back out. Bacon says maybe you should go “Hang Out With Hash Browns” because apparently fried potatoes have more brain cells than you, idiot Google searcher. And also, next time when you have a hole in the bucket, maybe you should ask Liza, instead of Google.

Cute hair colors for brunettes

Bacon is wondering if you were looking for another answer besides “brunette”. To which Bacon says you should “Put the ‘B’ in BLT” where B stands for blonde because you apparently are one and aren’t fooling anyone with your brown-dyed locks.

Childless spinster

Bacon can’t answer this. He’s still laughing that Kristabella used Google as a crystal ball and saw her future. Bacon only wants to add “with cats.”

Oh shit shirt ski

Bacon is wondering if someone with Tourettes typed this out. Because Bacon can’t figure out why anyone would string these four words together unless they were shouting guesses on Pictionary. Bacon says you should “Smoke” because clearly you’ve already been doing that and this phrase clearly only makes sense to a stoner. Probably my neighbors below me.

Who sings teh cubs song?

Bacon says “the LOLcats?”

Category: Bacon | 24 Comments »
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