Smiley is not so smiley today . . .

Smiley  has an abscessed tooth. It's his upper front tooth, the one that's been that's been discolored for most of his life due to a fall as a toddler. In a way it's a good thing it's on the way out because lately at school the dinkledorfs who pass for other people's children have begun to tease him about its appearance.

Anyhow, today he woke up in misery. He'd been nursing a headache, chills, nausea and lethargy since Monday, but we'd chalked that up to a flu bug that knocked LuLu out last week.

Given the urgency of the situation,  Lisa tried to get him into the dentist but Dr. X's office refused to see him because we'd 'missed' his last appointment - meaning the day my sitter crashed my van taking the kids to his office, in a vain attempt to keep the appointment we'd been forced to make at the end of 2011 for the 'earliest available date'. Per the doc and his receptionist, my kids were now persona non grata and no longer his patients.

Lisa tried to reason w/ the receptionist and failed, so he wound up in the ER instead. He had  fever of 101 and was given Tylenol and antibiotics. Meanwhile at work I used my break to call the dentist. Ten minutes later I had an appointment lined up for Tuesday morning, by which time the antibiotics will have brought the infection in check.

Lisa was happy with my result but royally P.O'd about who got the result, calling it a clear example of gender bias. I am not sure I agree, at least as she defines the issue. I do not think I automatically earned more respect (in this situation) because I'm a man, but I do think that had push come to shovel they would much rather have dealt with an angry Mom than a similarly irate (very large) man.

But -

I wasn't there in person, and I never raised my voice or did anything other than firmly but kindly plead my case. In this case - and perhaps it is only in this case - I don't think my gender had anything to do with the result. Instead, I think this can be chalked up to the fact that I can be a very persuasive, very disarming guy when I need to be, and with Smiley's health on the line this was a time when I 'needed to be'.

Besides, a bit of a damned if you do/damned if you don't, when you think about it. Lisa's all about admiring masculinity and the archetypal father figure, but when you fit that image you get blasted.

Ech. Life. :)