Gotta have Faith

OMG the most epic thing happened yesterday night, besides Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova being knocked out of the Open in straight sets. So I JUST finished watching the Roddick game and it was what 11.30? Then I decided to brush my teeth and I realised that my retainers ( for non braces people, its the clear plates you wear after having braces) were not in the box I usually put them in. I went to the kitchen to try find them and after searching the place for 10 mins they were nowhere to be found. So I woke up my whole house to look for them cos they're $600 and I wasn't prepared to waste some precious Chinese New year money buying a new pair.

I searched in biscuit tins, plates in the fridge, the cheese box, the milk carton, pantry, even in the freezer in case someone had frozen them in the ice tray but it was no where to be found. This took me another hour. So I thought 'someone must have thrown them out and it lies somewhere beneath all that rubbish in the garbage bin'. So you know what I did? At like 12.30am I went outside onto my street and hauled the otto bin up my very steep driveway and started taking bags of last night's food out. And this took some nerve- I hate the smell of bins, I hate random cocroaches roaming at night and I'm terrified of nocturnal wildlife. Using a pair of secateurs (?) I cut through numerous bags of food, rummaging through the waste of that afternoon's lunch. My retainers were no where to be found. Putting all the crap back into the bin was ultra hideous.

My parents had gone to sleep by then so after one last look in the kitchen I went to the recycling bin at 1 am and dug out some dairy cartons, paper, soft drink cans but again they were not there. STOP. Do you realise how hard it is to find? They're plastic acrylic and CLEAR and only 1 of the pair have a piece of metal on them.

So I went back upstairs and sat on the floor and thought about the afternoon.The last time I saw them, I was cutting a piece of cheese off the cheese block then the phone rang and I had to get it. I came back to eat the cheese... And I thought, if they were not in the house then they MUST be in the garbage. Then suddenly, OH MY GOSH ! THE GARBAGE GETS EMPTIED TOMORROW MORNING!!!! I wasn't gonna let some garbo crush my teeth straightening lovelies under all the GUNK of my neighbourhood! I said a silent prayer and leaped off the floor to get the bin again. It was about 1.30 BUT I NEED TO SAVE 600 MACAROONIES!!

THEN I pulled out another 3 bags I hadn't opened previously ( wow this family goes through a LOT of food) and at the LAST one I came to I saw a teenie glimmer of metal. I SHOUTED. LOUD. I FOUND MY BELOVED BEAUTIES!!!!! BOTH OF THEM!!! YES I went through half a box of gloves, YES it was 1.30 AM and I was scared to death, YES I probably looked like a hobo and YES I was half in tears because I smelt of the garbage bin, BUT I SAVED 600 BUCKS!!!!

And that is the epic story of how I saved my retainers. So today I bought denture, yes, denture tablets to sterilise them. I looked like an idiot walking out of chemist warehouse with denture tablets but I laughed to myself, knowing that I had faith to find those pair of plastics that gave me a reason to smile :)