Flicking straight to the lady clothes at the front of a catalogue, rather than the toy section at the back, getting charged full fare for the bus, choosing a bottle of vino for its taste rather than its price tag. There's times in life when you realise that, suddenly, without your knowing it, you've grown up. Likewise, there's events in your life that whip the ticket to adulthood clean out of your hands and you wonder how you ever thought you could do the bigstuff like yer mam.

These events reduce you to being a snotty little kid again. It happens frequently to me. I get pulled by the 5-0 and suddenly I'm all, 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir'. But that's another story. What prompted my pre pubescent transformation this time was a trip to the dentist.

Now I love the dentist as much as the next guy but I reckoned I should sort the pain I'd been experiencing in my mouth out sharpish. Especially since essentially, it's been there for like a year. So off to the dentist I went, taking mummy with me. To hold my stuff and stuff.

I was expecting an immense wait in the waiting room, punctuated by freaks but was rather disappointed. Last time, whilst reading a book ( I made it up to chapter 6) (and they were long chapters) I noticed a man open and devour a snickers bar, right before his turn to see the dentist. A snickers! That's like defecating on the reception desk and then smearing it into the receptionist's trowelled on face. It also made me feel somewhat foolish for brushing my teeth 3 times and then smuggling mints into the toilet to freshen my breath.

The root of the problem, pardon the pun, was soon found to be my wisdom tooth. We can ave that out in a jiffy she assured me. So as I lay back and thought of England, she talked me through the procedure.

'Have you ever had a tooth extracted before?' she asked.

'Why yes', I replied, 'I've even removed some of the little blighters myself.'

 'Ah,' she said, 'milk teeth.'

 The dentist and the nurse exchanged glances.

'Well,' she said, 'it won't hurt much, there'll just be a little bit of pushing, then pulling, then pop.' Pushing then pulling, I thought. The Chuckle Brothers make that look pretty easy. To me to you.

'Have you had anything to eat?' she said.

'Did you not hear the part about me being in agony?'

'Here, drink this sugary drink.'

As I downed the liquid sugar faster than a shot of jagermeister, the irony, as always, was not lost on me.

I managed, for once, to stay conscious for the jabs. By the time the pushing and pulling started, I was crying out for more injections. I've never experienced pain like it, I've never sweated so much, but with the reassuring words of the nurse, 'you're doing really well' (I only had to sit in the chair and open me gob and I'm not sure I was rate good at that) it was soon over. And I didn't cry. Mumsie was on hand, as ever, to offer support, in a comedy form.

'Your mouth int big enough.'

'Ha she's never been told that before.'

Mummy, the nurse and the dentist agreed I'd been a brave little soldier. I felt that perhaps the need to reiterate I was 25 not 5 was not supported by the acceptance of stickers and a lolly.

But strangely, I feel the ordeal has prepared me a little more for my NQT year. If nothing else, I can cross one more thing off my to do list.