avoidance

the techniques of avoidance - if there was an exam I'd ace this one.

My first, non-child and considerable effort in avoiding was when I was 11.

I'd never had a drilling filling in my teeth until then. I think I had had fillings before but Annette King was my dental nurse.

She had yet to develop her fearsome political persona - she grew up to be deputy leader of the Labour party and Minister of Health, Police and Transport but not all at the same time - so she was still kind and gentle. I have no memory of her hurting my wee child mouth. Mind you as a Labour MP she would have done what she thought was best for me regardless of what I wanted.

But by the time I was at Intermediate school, murder house technology had advanced enough that they gave kids injections. I loathe injections. The thought of them makes me shaky and pale, I gulp and panic. I have to hold some one's hand, they need to have the death grip on me cause I tend to back away.

Having said that years ago I decided to follow my Dad's footsteps and become a marathon blood donor - two reasons there is never enough donated blood and I thought I'd deal with my fear of injections. Turns out I'm ok with thick needles removing blood, its the injecting I freak out about.

I successful lied my way out of getting my filling for a week or so by telling the Dental Nurse that my mum hadn't signed the permission slip aka I hadn't told her.

Until she called Mags and the jig was up! (I always wanted to type that little phrase and it deserves an exclaimation point). Even now the pain in the exact location of where the local anesthesia was injected is well remembered and aching.

Now I'm sitting on the couch by the fire (with a pain in my mouth) avoiding doing homework for my course. I love my course, I love learning, I love everything about the course and process but not homework, sorry homeplay - cause renaming it really makes a difference.

It's funny cause when I'm busy busy I get everything done without a thought of avoiding things I'd rather not do but when I have time and am relaxed, gee do I not want to do certain things. Then I become un-relaxed because my sense of duty rears it's ugly little head.

All I have to do is watch some DVDs, plan three lessons, write up a cultural thing and something else but I think I'll go make breakfast and get rid of the mouse in the trap under the sink - hows that for avoidance?