Fun With Dentistry

“He's not that young.”

“Oh, yeah? If he’d raised his hand, I’d have written him a bathroom pass.”

“He is a professional. His degrees are hanging on the wall of his office.”

“Give me fifteen minutes alone with Microsoft Publisher and I can make you dean of Harvard Law School.”

“Well, he’s old enough to drive a Lexus.”

“I don’t care if he pilots a twin engine. What kind of grownup would shoot your face full of rigor mortis and ask you to spit?”

Right on the heels of our Sushi While You Bait adventure, I joined forces with an errant stick of Juicy Fruit gum to initiate Fun With Dentistry day. My crown popped out of my jaw like a kernel of Jiffy Pop over high heat. The Captain tried to calm my fears with the voice of reason. The voice of reason now speaks in falsetto.

When I was a kid and lost a tooth, the tooth fairy would leave a shiny new quarter under my pillow. She must have invested heavily in Microsoft, because these days she deals in folding money. But I haven’t seen her since the last time I could see my feet without using mirrors.

I feel obliged to keep my local dentist in work so that he can afford that villa in Hilton Head, the Riviera of the south, but with Spanish moss and alligators. You can tell it’s civilized by the number of men in plaid pants stalking the golf course and putting through the windmill. I like the guy just fine and want him to have a good life, but he’s so young his parents have to cosign his prescriptions.

It’s unsettling when a fellow young enough to know all the words to the Pokeman theme song sets about buffing your teeth with a power sander. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to let someone whose favorite piece of literature is illustrated with Japanese cartoon characters edge around your eyeteeth, but before I knew it, Dr. Drillbit was up to his Converse All Stars in my mouth. I made a mental note to remind him to tie his shoes and wear matching socks.

He yanked enough roots out of my mouth to start a vegetable garden and spackled in some replacement teeth before I could say Holy Molar. Maybe we have different priorities.I’m 51 years old. I could use that cement to hold up more important things than my teeth.

My sons were aghast to discover that I’d raided their inheritance to pay for the dental work. Screwing the cap back on the jar, I took advantage of the teaching moment and gave them each a shiny new quarter to help blaze a trail to a new life.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting up for the tooth fairy. She’s got a lot of explaining to do.

And I’ve got some spare cement.

Something's Afoot

Raelynn unfurled a leg longer than the weeds in my herb garden and regarded one foot. She pulled out a cell phone and pressed a button. Immediate attention from Emergency services was essential.

The only numbers I have on speed dial are my kids and the plant doctor. If the Peta people cared as much about geraniums as they do about houseflies, they’d be hurling organic fertilizer at me every time I strolled through the Lawn and Garden section at Sears. A day doesn’t go by at my house without another senseless murder surrounded by potting soil and peat moss. But more important matters were afoot here.

My dear friend Raelynn was experiencing a crisis. Climbing out of her Town Car, she’d chipped the polish on one of her piggies.

Raelynn spends more money on her big toe than most people spend on their first real car—not the beater that got you through college and collapsed in a sigh of oil-induced relief on graduation day, but the one whose odometer turned to 100 for nobody but you. Spread this kind of upkeep over all available footage, and I could float a Ferrari over the Autobahn like a hovercraft for what she spends on the care and feeding of her feet.

If I ever spend that much time on a part of my body I haven’t seen since the last time Waldo was spotted, please repossess my WalMart Master Card.

“They’ll take me at four,” she said, snapping her cell phone shut the way a prosecuting attorney would close a file of incriminating evidence in front of a condescending judge. She watched as I shucked off my Converse sneakers.

“You could take better care of your feet. It isn’t that hard.”

“I don’t have time for all that oil and lotion and sanding them with a rock. I’ve got to peel the potatoes for dinner and vacuum the living room.”

“You use frozen potatoes. How long can it take to push Start? And that little automatic vacuum cleaner of yours scurries around like a mouse sucking up hairballs. It’s like playing room to room air hockey.”

“Well, it’s too much trouble.”

“Taking care of your feet is easier than cooking dinner. Why, after you wash and dry them. . .”

“You have to wash them?”

Raelynn looked at me as if I’d suggested she upholster her Lincoln with vinyl siding.

“You don’t wash your feet?”

“I’m not exactly sure where they are. I figure they must be at the bottom of the pile somewhere. They get the soap and water runoff when I take a shower.”

She blinked. “You’re going with me this afternoon. You need it more than I do.”

Two hours later my feet were softer than cumulous clouds, better decorated than my guest bedroom, and smelled like the perfume tester counter at the mall. I was afraid to walk.

The girl in charge of my new look played the cash register like a slot machine and announced a total. I could have bought a registered Shih Tzu and a groomer to find its eyes for what I paid for my feet. I handed over the little piece of plastic that big girls use to buy new toys and sighed.

That night, Bill and I spent the evening calculating whether it was worth sacrificing the kids’ college education to support my feet in their new lifestyle.

“Well, he said, watching the light dance off of the Pink Passion polish. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “foot the bill.”