Caitlyn Factor

February 27th, 2021

This happened many, many years ago, but it bears repeating.  I was working in Belgium and I had a long weekend off, so I took my company car and drove alone to Paris.  I walked around, seeing the sights, doing some shopping, it was a fabulous day.  I was kind of bummed that night when I had to eat by myself at a Greek restaurant.

I had been given Tetracycline as a child for earaches, and it had turned my permanent teeth a lovely shade of gray/green.  My smile was not the best.  So a year or two before that assignment I had finally saved up enough money for veneers.  It made all the difference, I felt like I could finally smile.  They made my teeth look pretty and white.  So here I am, feeling a little lonely, but at least I had a nice smile when I talked.  I ordered lamb and a Greek salad.

I’ll be damned if a bunch of Parisians (seven of them) didn’t invite me over to their table.  My French was so-so, their English was almost non-existent.  But we had a great time.  They took me to some of the best hidey-hole places in the St. Germain neighborhood.  A lot of these were underground.  Now, one of the few words they understood was tequila.  So they had shots with Seven-up, and slammed them down on the table, and then drank them.  I taught them about lime and salt.

It was a surreal night.  At one point it occurred to me that they never would have spent this much time with the old Caitlyn with the bad teeth.  But eventually they even took me up to Sacre-Coeur church that is at the highest point in Paris to watch the sunrise.  I was so blessed.  But before that happened.  We were at another bar, with a bunch of English rugby players, they had just won a game, so they were pretty psyched.  One of them bought me a drink as I was trying to get to the bar to get to the bar to buy my round of drinks for the Parisians.

He looks at me and says, “Luv, you have something stuck on your front tooth.  You might want to clean that up.”

Before buying the drinks for the Parisians I go to the bathroom, and check what’s on my tooth.  There is a piece of fricking black lettuce from the Greek salad that is stuck on my front tooth that almost makes me look like I’m missing one of my front teeth.

What the hell?

I peel this sucker off and laugh my ass off.  Oh.  My.  God.

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