The Number 22

It makes me wish I was a double agent in a bad Eighties spy movie and some American or Russian bonecrusher would tie me down to a chair in a dilapidated warehouse in a deserted neighbourhood and start pulling my teeth out… because eventually they’d get to the one that’s giving me trouble.

Toothache is one of the only legitimate reasons for a bad mood. When a little old lady at the bus stop smiles because you moved off the seat so she could sit there, you just want to punch her in the face.

Not her face in particular. It could be anyone. Any face.

It gets worse when the bus you’re supposed to catch – the number 22 – drives straight past you without even so much as a sideward glance. You run after it waving your hand, but then remember Don Johnson’s words from the film ‘Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man’: “My old man told me before he left this shitty world: Never chase women or busses; you always get left behind.”

Truer words are not very often spoken.

I don’t know what it is about the number 22 bus. It’s always late with a grumpy driver who tears through the streets like a maniac.

I remember one rainy bus ride out to Mutley Plain when the ‘22’ driver hit a cyclist. The poor pedal-powered patsy bounced off the large window, startling some old dear, without so much as slowing down.

The bus driver’s expression – common to all bulldogs while dining on wasps – didn’t flicker, and he carried on as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had occurred. I sighed with a slight wave of homesickness and thought about the roads of Cape Town.

But enough with the flashbacks.

That same day the morose ‘22’ flew past, leaving me more than a bit pissed off, got worse.

The weather knuckled down and with a bit of effort managed to cough an hour’s worth of hail out; and my tooth – not to be outdone – turned my mouth into an Iranian nuclear testing site – with suicide-bomber-practice-run intervals between each mushroom-cloud-main-event – while I waited at the bus stop to embark on my return journey.

Needless to say, my sense of humour had packed his belongings into a hanky and tied it onto the end of a stick and told me he was taking the magic beans and my signed copy of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ and marrying a washed-up pornstar in a kitsch Las Vegas church to pursue his dream of training Boston Terrier puppies to bark the hits of Chesney Hawks.

This news left me devastated.

After fifteen minutes of trying not to scare the old ladies waiting with me, I saw the much-anticipated ‘22’ careering down the road. Holding my hand out and stepping into the road, I flagged the Frankenfaced steering-wheel-pusher down.

Of course, he stopped five metres away from where I was standing. And as I walked towards him the grannies jumped to their feet in front of me.

So, being a gentleman in spite of the dental demolition derby running across my gums, I slowed down and patiently followed the OAPs; imagining that soon I would be holding on for dear life as the sour-faced Citybus speedster either brought me closer to home or closer to God.

Before I knew it the accordion-doors were closing and the bus was shooting off without me or the old ladies on board. As it turned out the grannies had clocked the number ‘8’ bus a mile up the road and were giving their old bones a head start before it flew past as well.

Next time I’ll just elbow them out the way.

… later that day, when I’d eventually met up with Lucy, she said I’d probably have seen the funny side if it wasn’t for the misery-inducing cavity.

Secret agents might laugh in the face of danger, but it’s hard to laugh with toothache.