Flight of Fancy

Shots scare me, those fired by members of the gangs to remove competition as much as those given by a nurse to keep some future calamity at bay or given by a dentist to alleviate the pain she would inflict a little later. That is why I avoid vaccinations and get the altogether unavoidable dental work, even root canals, done without freezing. To cope with the discomfort I let my imagination take wings. Giving free rein to the only cell in my brain in order to minimize the anticipated suffering is a trick I learnt at school when our short and stout teacher took out a long thin cane from his desk to teach me a different lesson than he had expected me to learn from the book, if not from his guttural speech. That ploy comes in handy on occasions, especially when my mouth is wide open and a naughty tooth is being subjected to a dentist’s whip. That was about to be my situation one morning last week. Waiting for some deep drilling in my wisdom tooth, I was lying on a chair, comfortable even by the high standards of classy dental clinics, looking out of a raised window at the chirping birds and the blue sky with silvery clouds floating by languorously. The footsteps of the dentist brought me back into the room and my eyes moved down to a framed photograph about two feet long and a little more than one foot wide hanging on the wall below the window. It showed the reflections of the downtown office towers on the gleaming black trunk of a Bentley with its insignia prominent at the centre of the photograph. The car was parked on the road side with no driver or passenger in view. This was the ideal starting point for the brain cell to work from and carry me painlessly to the point of facing the bill for an hour in the chair.

This is where the flight of fancy took me.

The car as expensive as a new Bentley with the gold insignia can not be driven by the owner; there has to be a chauffer, who was perhaps smoking a cigar just out of the scope of the camera or polishing the hood to remove the speck of dust only he could see. If one can afford a Bentley, he (wealthy women prefer Rolls Royce) couldn’t live in an ordinary house, not even a big one. He must live in a mansion with indoor swimming pool and two hot tubs, dining room to seat fifty, ten bed rooms, twelve 'powder rooms' and a six car garage to accommodate the friends of his pride and joy. There must, of course, be well manicured gardens with roses, blue bells and chrysanthemums in the front and on the sides and an orchard with apple, peach and pear trees, raspberry bushes and grape vines at the back. To maintain them there must be a head gardener with at least two assistants. And of course there must be staff of ten to manage the household – a butler, a chef, some maids to help them, and not to forget a special assistant to the butler for jobs like polishing ornaments and to answer the door bell. It is not the nineteenth century; one can’t expect any one to work more than regulation thirty five hours a week. Even with careful management of schedules at least two shifts are required at a minimum. Once you have got it all organized, or some business you hired has done it for you for a suitable fee, wouldn’t life be grand. You wake up not to the harsh sound of an alarm clock but the musical tinkling of the tray butler is bringing to your bedside before setting out the apparel appropriate to the activities planned for the day and running the bath. You spend the morning in meetings with your asset managers before a leisurely lunch with one of them. Depending on the weather the activity for the afternoon is a few holes at the golf course or bridge at the club. When you return to your relatively humble abode after a gruelling day, chauffer opens the door of the Bentley and takes the not quite empty flute from your hands. You get out, nod to the doorman as he holds the front door open and slump on a sofa. There is the butler to pour you the cup of tea just as you like it – its colour matching the back of your hand - when his assistant is taking your footwear off to soak the tired feet in hot water enriched with soothing potions prescribed by your naturopathic practitioner and then dry and massage them. Enter the chef with a slice of freshly baked pecan pie with a dollop of whipped cream on the side. Ah! This is the way to live. “Thank you Grammie for making all this possible” I say to no one in particular becoming the owner of Bentley for a short but glorious moment.

The flight over, the brain returned to Earth. I handed my overcharged credit card to the receptionist. Unpleasant formalities thus looked after, I took a bus home. When I arrived, my wife was at the door ready to leave for a day in the mountains with her hiking club. Without asking how the visit went – she always has a lot on her mind - she said “I am so glad you are back before I left. You must not go to work with a sore mouth, you need to rest at home. I would suggest a couple of things you could do to while away the time. The lawn needs a cut and the trees along the fence need pruning. Don’t leave the clippings for me to clean up; I have enough to do as it is. When you have done them, you may not have noticed but the laundry is piling up, mostly with your clothes. Oh yes. There is a list of odd jobs on the kitchen table. It will be nice if you made a start on them. You will perhaps be asleep when I am back. Have a good day.”

I have been lucky in my wife who, thoughtful as always, arranged my schedule to make sure there was no spare moment to feel the pain in my mouth but not so in my grandmother. Why couldn’t she leave it all to me?