AD.


$100 worth – foto by Smith

Having a tooth pulled at 8:30 in the morning is not the way I’d choose to start my day. I’m sick of the taste of swallowed blood. That and my love of garlic shows I would make a darn poor vampire – besides, I’ve been to enough parties with the brainless to realize the undead are not my preferred conversational tribe.

Last time I had a tooth pulled, the dentist wouldn’t give me my tooth, said it was against the health laws. Time before that the dentist did give me my tooth and I put it in a fine collage titled Post Coital Repression. This time when I asked, he said sure, and then the assistant threw it away anyway. The dentist came back with a prescription and asked if I’d gotten my tooth. Said no, so he went to the trash can and dug the two pieces out for me. Now that is service.

When my father had his artificial knee installed, I asked if he’d ask the surgeon for his old knee cap back so I could use it in art. The doc laughed, said that was the oddest request he’d heard and that he’d be happy to except old knee caps are sliced out a thin section at a time so there’d be nothing to give me.

The tooth did not want to come out. Believe my body was thinking I’d lost enough teeth already and was fighting to hold on to this one. The doc’s pliers kept slipping off into my lower teeth and I had visions of him breaking even more.

Doc said the tooth next to the one he pulled was loose and would eventually go. That leaves two loose future lost teeth on top. Aren’t you glad you’re not me?

The minor good news is I miscounted my top teeth – I have nine left now, not eight. I’ll take what I can get.

After I left the dentist and spit blood all over the street, I glanced at the prescription – it’s for 30 Vicodins. Last tooth extraction they told me to take Aspirin or over the counter Tylenol, so this is a major gift. In fact, I have a good buzz on now.


I now have 9 left on top, 13 on bottom – foto by Smith

2 Responses

  1. Good read about a bad happening…. Though it has nothing to do with you, here’s a dental poem of mine I was surprised to see Writer’s Digest publish. I considered it a bit of a throwaway, but a friend talked me into submitting it and I’m glad:

    TOOTH TELLING

    I wanted badly
    To bite the slight
    Bulge of belly beneath
    Your navel

    But I feared
    You might
    Bite back

  2. as you know (since you put it in your online poetry library), here’s my own bite poem

    Want Ad

    I like walks in the rain
    I like licking pink stains
    There’s good and bad things baby
    Crawling through your hair
    Old lumps of new grown gravy
    Calling from your lair
    You wanna bite me baby
    I wanna bite me too
    Bite me three times
    You got a deal

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