Am writing – Miss Brown

The thing I had forgotten was that we had agreed to go on a double date with Sarah and Tom. We’re weren’t ready and had forgotten to book a babysitter for Emilia so we decided to just go and take turns sitting in the car while she slept. We arrived 45 minutes late wearing jumpers smeared with baby drool and realised we were not dressed appropriately for this type of venue. Luckily, there was a bag of clothes we were going to give Vinnies in the boot. I put on an outfit one size too small and Jake’s clothes were the size up from his own. Jake decided to do the first round of baby supervision, so I went in. Sarah and Tom were happy to see me. I explained the baby situation and they were very understanding. Next, we sat down and ordered drinks. As the entree came out I noticed pine nuts in the dish and started joking about Pine Mouth. The Japanese have a saying: Pine Mouth is when the odds are against you and you are cursed with rancid breath for eternity – or something like that. We had a great laugh and ate the entree with the toasted pine nuts. As I pinched the last remaining pine nut off my plate, in that split second between it leaving the plate and landing in my mouth I thought “what if this is the rancid nut?”. My body moved faster than my brain and so I threw it into my mouth and chewed. My fate had been sealed, I had Pine Mouth. I knew this was not going to go away easily. I had heard horror stories of Pine Mouth lasting for months. My next thought was to head to the bar to drink something strong that would take away the flavour. Fernet Branca, Limoncello, Absinthe, Grappa, Jagermeister – they did nothing for my suffering. I kept drinking and nothing helped. Only my stomach started to complain and gurgle. Pine Mouth was starting to derail the beautiful evening when Jake rushed inside and said “I’ve been calling you for over an hour. Have you forgotten about me?” The answer was yes. So, as promised, it was my turn to sit in the car. As I sat in the there, all I could do was think about the revolting flavour in my mouth. All I could think about was Pine Mouth. I tried to rise above it and to go beyond it using mindfulness, I listened to music, I watched videos. Nothing could take my mind away from it. My Pine Mouth was so over powering that I had to take action.

First, I found some baby wipes and wiped my tongue. No change. Next I shook some baby powder into my mouth as a breath freshener. Nothing. Finally, I found a pair or scissors and used them to scrape the top layer off my tongue. The goo that I scraped off had a terrible stench, something was finally working. I wiped the scissors clean and wiped my tongue with a baby wipe for good measure. I took a moment, the Pine Mouth was gone.

I passed out in the car only to be woken by a screaming Jake. I had locked the doors from the inside and couldn’t make out what he was saying. As I regained consciousness I realised he was saying there was blood on me as well as cocaine on my face. I tried to calmly explain to him I had just scraped my tongue and used the baby powder in my mouth. As I spoke, the flavour had returned to my mouth. I thought to myself,  ‘life is over, Pine Mouth is forever.’ I started to cry.

At this point Jake was panicking and totally freaking out because he felt like the situation was escalating and couldn’t comprehend what I was rambling about while crying. I sobered up enough to realised the patrons from the restaurant had congregated around the car to see what all of the fuss was about and one of them had called the police. I grabbed the mirror and looked at my reflection. I looked like a murder/fetish scene gone wrong. It was very embarrassing explaining the situation to the to police when they arrived.

This is why we never go out.