My Dental Disaster

Major setback today in conquering my lifelong fear of the dentist. My first ever root canal procedure, done just five days ago,...didn't quite take...leaving me in quite a lot of pain this morning. I took some pain medicine at 7:00 am which did nothing. It was so bad, I actually called the surgeon of my own free will to ask him to do something about it. He agreed that I should come in this afternoon. He seemed particularly glad to see me...

After some dentist office small talk, he determined that there must have been some nerve endings down there that he had missed which were the culprit. I was quickly shipped off into the surgery room where I figured I would once again do the sedation dentistry thing. To my great surprise, no sedation was forthcoming and before I knew what was happening, the good dentist was administering ginormous doses of Novocain into my left jaw with what looked like a horse-sized syringe. 

This time there was no music, only the bone chilling noise of sharp metal instruments doing their grizzly work. Several times I jumped noticeably at the uncomfortable pains shooting this way and that around the inside of my mouth. Whenever I did, the surgeon would ask, "So sorry...are you alright?" To which I would reply..."shwerlzhhggtz, mummphthrurth..." Thus reassured, he would offer the encouraging phrase..."almost done now..." which translated means...just getting started, actually.

The only bright spot was the fact that this new round of torture was covered under my $1470 bill from session one. 

Hopefully all is well now and nothing bad will happen between now and my last session on October 17th. Although, I felt compelled to tell everyone in the office the reason for my extreme discomfort, and to insist that the next time I come for a visit I would much prefer sedation dentistry...or absent that, any newer, bolder plan to kill the pain and unpleasantness of the procedure...

He has promised me that he will look into it.

Four Simple Suggestions For Our World

Anyone alive today who hasn't been trapped in a sensory deprivation tank as part of some CIA experiment over the past five years knows that something is terribly wrong with our country. No, not necessarily our politics...but us. We human beings are a mess. We treat each other terribly. We have become mean, rude, impatient, hateful, inconsiderate, selfish, greedy, narcissistic animals. But anyone who suggests solutions to our behavioral problems using either politics or religion as the cure gets summarily dismissed as a partisan. The truth is that there is no simple solution at hand that will reverse a centuries old degradation of manners. What ails humanity is complex beyond understanding. However, the world's longest journey begins with a single step. Just because the simple things are...simple, that doesn't mean they are worthless.

What follows are a few such simple suggestions for my fellow Americans. I have given this a lot of thought and think that these are things that everyone of us are capable of doing. They require no changes to our political views, and no religious epiphany. The adoption of these suggestions will not transform our nation into paradise, but I believe the result of their adoption would be a life which would suck far less. Here goes...

Don't litter.

Seriously, how easy would it be to hang on to that receipt from CVS until you get to the car instead of flicking it unto the asphalt of the parking lot as soon as you leave the store? When you litter...when you use God's creation as your garbage can...you are essentially saying you don't care about anyone except yourself. It's the Olympic gold standard of selfishness. Not only should you never litter, how about picking up someone else's litter when you see it? You're hiking in the woods somewhere and out of nowhere you come upon an empty bag of Cheetos. It's not enough to mutter in disgust, "stupid idiot...what was he thinking??!!" Pick the thing up!!! Maybe we should all never leave the house without a trash bag for the car to have a place to put trash that we find on the street. Imagine how cleaner our world would be if we all picked up someone else's litter every day?

Pay more attention to old people.

They are everywhere. People are living longer. It's nothing anymore for people to live well into their nineties. As a result, old people are all around us. You see them at the grocery store with their electric carts. You see them shuffling along at the mall. You watch them struggle with the hose at the gas station. How about we all start honoring them by looking after them? Ask them if they need any help with anything. Offer to help them across the street. Look in on them more often than we do. Not just our own parents, but our elderly neighbors. A lot can be learned about a society by how they treat their seniors. By any standard, we don't measure up to the basic standard laid out 4000 years ago...honor they father and mother. So, how about we pay better attention to them. Bring them a meal every once in a while. Cut some flowers and drop them by. Offer to cut their grass when it gets terribly hot. Honor them.

Give single parents a break.

It's happened to all of us. We settle down in our seat on the plane, start flipping through the Sky Mall magazine, then our hearts sink when we see the harried, single mom board the plane with a crying infant and an obnoxious toddler in tow. Our hearts sink because we are pissed at how their presence on the flight will inconvenience us. The fact is that no one on the entire airplane is having a worse day than that single mom. Instead of slapping on head phones and hunkering down, would it kill any of us to gin up some empathy? Try to remember what it was like back in the day when you were the one traveling with your kids. Only you had your husband or wife with you! I saw a story the other day about a man on a plane somewhere who offered to walk a single mother's crying baby up and down the aisle of the plane to calm him so the mom could get some rest. He was a total stranger to this beleaguered mom but offered to help because he was a dad himself and knew what it was like to have a crying baby. Give that man the Nobel Peace Prize, I say. Any of us could have done that. Being a single parent has to be the hardest job in the world. Mostly it's single mothers, but there are single dads out there too. They deserve our love and care and sympathy. 

On race...listen more, talk less.

On matters of race in this country, everyone has an opinion. I do. When someone starts criticizing my opinions on race, my immediate reaction is to launch myself into debate mode. I write a blog...I love debate! So when the subject of Black Lives Matter, or reparations or police brutality come up, I begin formulating my response, and while I'm doing that, it's hard if not impossible...to listen. Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that nobody is listening to you. All of us need to figure out a way to honestly, with sincere effort, actively listen to what the other side is saying. We need to hear each other out...completely. It may not change anyone's mind. But it will allow us to enter into a thorough exchange of views, which at least will give all of us the privilege of being heard. That has to be an improvement, right?

Each of these four simple things is doable. All of us have it within us to stop littering, to take a minute to take better care of our older neighbors, to be more sensitive to single parents and to shut up and listen to others. None of this is hard. Well, maybe the listening thing is hard. But it's still doable. Wouldn't our world...your world be better if we did?

Ugh......

We need some rain.

The Redskins still suck.

Baseball pennant races are on the home stretch.

Rick Perry is apparently on a dancing show.

Football players are kneeling during the national anthem.

Just booked a cabin in the Smoky Mountains for the first weekend in October.

Why haven't we hung the pictures in the dining room?

Why does Lucy foam at the mouth every time she gets around other dogs?

Why can I still taste dental antiseptic in my mouth a full four days after a root canal?

I really hate having to chew stuff on only one side of my mouth.

What kind of person camps out five days ahead of the release of the new iPhone?

Despite consistently working out four days a week, I am suddenly 200 pounds after spending most of my adult life in the 188-193 range.

The other day Pam made a bean soup that tasted exactly like the one Mom used to make.

These are a random sample of things that I want to write about more than I want to write about this monstrous election.

Punished by God

Everybody has seen the video by now. Hillary Clinton, leaning against a concrete pillar, waiting for her SUV to arrive, back to the camera. Then she tries to move forward into the van but stumbles badly, knees buckling, caught by secret service agents then whisked away. Her spin team declared it a case of overheating, only to be contradicted several hours later by her doctor who disclosed a pneumonia diagnosis, only to be contradicted an hour later by the candidate herself who emerged from her daughter's apartment declaring that she felt great! When it comes to the Clinton's, the first casualty is always the truth, so who knows what the real story is.

Just when you think that the 2016 election can't possibly get any worse, now we get this. I suppose we will soon have to endure a week of dueling medical records. Trump's will detail the superhuman strength and endurance of an 18 year old, while Hillary's will be heavily redacted to protect our national security interests from the harm that would surely come if it were revealed that the future president suffers from irritable bowel syndrome.

I have come to the conclusion that we are being punished by God. Although his patience and long suffering are legendary, apparently, he has had enough. This is what we get for taking prayer out of school, aborting a gazillion babies, rampant racism and reality television. God has sent us Trump vs. Clinton. There will be no end to the personal and national embarrassment of this election. By the time it's over we will all have been taken down ten notches on the pride scale. There won't be anymore USA, USA, USA chants coming out of us for a good long while. Sack cloth and ashes will make a comeback. Younger Americans will look up the meaning of the word repentance to see what that's all about. Older Americans will never again describe politics with the phrase, "You think it's bad now? You should have been around when..." because it will never again be true. 2016 will mark the new nadir of American history, the place and time when every single one of our institutions failed us.

On Friday, Janurary 20th, 2017, one of these two will be sworn in as President of the United States. Either Hillary Clinton will stumble up the steps to take the oath, or Donald Trump will stand at the podium, orange hair set ablaze by the cold winter sun. I plan on drinking heavily.

One more thing about the Hillary video. I hate watching it. I hate seeing any presidential candidate in such a state. It's disturbing. If she is seriously ill, I feel bad for her. It has nothing to do with politics. But as a human being, you should be able to empathize with her. My first reaction when I saw it was, "Good Lord...what's wrong with her? Is she going to be ok?" For better or worse, this woman has been front and center of our national life for thirty years now. How would I react if I discovered that she is dying of some horrible disease? Honestly, I would feel bad. If that makes me insuffiently partisan, so be it.

Separated at Birth, or Time Traveller?

What is Aleppo??

The Libertarian Presidential candidate, Gary Johnson was asked a question on a morning news show by noted plagiarist, Mike Barnicle..."What would you do if elected about Aleppo?"

Johnson: What is Aleppo?

With that three word reply, the beltway punditry crowd unanimously declared Johnson's long shot candidacy over. Any candidate for the highest office in the land who doesn't know that Aleppo is the third largest city in Syria and is ground zero of the refugee crisis now plaguing Southern Europe has been labeled unfit for office by all of the smart people in Washington. 

To which I say...bull****

What follows is not a defense of Gary Johnson. Although he and I agree on much more than we disagree on, he seems a bit too goofy for my taste. He's smart enough, and has executive experience as a governor and all, but when I look at him and hear him speak, he reminds me too much of Howdy Doody. Still, in the slim pickings of 2016, I would prefer goofy to insane and pathological. 

Johnson is a Libertarian, and as such is probably the least likely candidate to give a rat's a** about Aleppo. He would probably love to talk about the moronic foreign policy decisions that made Aleppo famous, but the finer points of middle eastern geography isn't high on his skill set, and I for one would like to see more of this. Maybe if our politicians cared more about the refugee crisis in our country, the destruction of our cities, we would be better off. Instead of wringing our hands about the innocent deaths in Aleppo, how about a plan to stop the innocent deaths in Chicago?

So, poor Gary Johnson has a brain fart about what Aleppo is ( he claims he thought it was an an acronym for something--I'll work on that! ), so that means he has disqualified himself for public office. That's good to know. Lack of proper knowledge of world geography is now more important than the proper handling of classified information. Poor geography skills is now more devastating than serial infidelities and publically lusting after your own daughter. Got it.

But, assuming that Johnson did know what Aleppo was, here's how he should have answered.

Johnson: What would I do about Aleppo? That's like asking Vladimir Putin what he plans to do  about Chicago. Aleppo is a city in the middle of a war zone in a country fighting a civil war. And while I can make a good case that so far our policies have made that civil war worse, not better...as President I plan on doing nothing about Aleppo. For better or worse, Syria will have to sort it out. Besides, I'm gonna have my hands full with Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Newark, Gary, Ferguson, etc....

Oh, and it turns out that Aleppo is an acronym...

A- Alliance of the

L- Loser

E- Elite

P- Pampered

P- Punditry

O- Oligharchs 

My Day At The Dentist

Today I was introduced to the concept of sedation dentistry...like regular dentistry but with better drugs. I was referred to Monroe Harris DMD by my regular dentist and regaled with glowing testimonials about his skill and reputation. I was assured that I wouldn't "feel a thing."

I arrived at the chamber of sadistic horrors at 9:45 this morning as per the instructions. His friendly staff walked me through the preliminaries with relative competence. Then I was ushered into the pre-surgery consultation room where I met Harris and a bevy of subordinates who tried to explain to me what was about to happen. I nodded my head dutifully, distracted by the 50 inch plasma TV hanging on the wall blaring out sports center. Then everyone disappeared, promising to return shortly with some additional paperwork, leaving me alone to contemplate the performance of the rookie Denver Bronco quarterback from last night's game....for 45 minutes.

I shouldn't complain. The television could just have easily been on some real estate flipping channel, or worse...MSNBC. But, having 45 minutes to think about your dental fate while you are A. Starving because of your fast, and B. You have the mother of all coffee-deprived headaches, is a bad combination. Finally, a perky assistant bounced through the door with an armful of disclaimers that required my signature. As an added pre-surgery benefit, she had gone to the trouble of calling my insurance company to confirm the sad fact that I have no dental coverage (Thanks, Obama!). She presented me with the bill for the day's services...before I had actually received them...$1450. Yes, nothing quite gets you in the mood for a root canal like a four figure bill payable immediately. I informed the nice lady that my wife had the credit card and would be more than happy to take care of this. Sure enough, five minutes later Pam appeared at the door, big happy smile on her face.

Pam: How cool is that? We earn points for this!!

The next step in the procedure was to move me to surgery room #2. There was no television in this more austere, all business room. However, on the wall directly in front of me there was a wide screen, panoramic full mouth X-ray of my teeth taken earlier in the morning. Seriously, this thing was at least four feet wide. It looked like a negative from some old Auschwitz photograph, my teeth like malnourished prisoners. During the additional twenty minutes spent staring at it, my mood began to go from apprehensive to disturbed. Finally, Harris walked in exuding brisk confidence, "Doug, I want to assure you that we are going to take great care of you. You have absolutely nothing to worry about."

Then I heard the music start. 1970's Motown began piping through the speaker system as they prepped me with an IV and hooked me up to several monitors. I heard him say, "This will be the last thing you feel until I'm through." 

Ok, I have been put under for three separate operations in my life. This was different. He was right. I didn't feel a thing. But, the anesthesia only killed the pain. It did nothing for my hearing. For the next thirty minutes, I heard everything. The high-pitched whiz of the drill, the metallic grinding of the tools, and the dulcet tones of Marvin Gaye moaning about sexual healing. I must say that Monroe Harris DMD has a very good voice, since he sang along on every song. On the ones I knew, I joined in. I heard everything, even the scattered laughter when I helped Diana Ross with...Baby, baby...where did our love go?"

After it was all over, I was informed that this particular root canal was to be a two part procedure, the second half to be scheduled in October...but not to worry, what I paid today covered both visits.

So, I must do this again.

The novocaine is finally wearing off. The pain is bearable. The taste in my mouth is positively medieval.

But Pam is busy making homemade banana pudding, soup and Apple sause for dinner. Harris was right. He did take good care of me!