The Eastpointer

Taking the Bite out of your Dental Bills

By Richard E. Noble

Sometimes we conservatives take our innate propensities a little too far.
I have always considered myself a conservative and as everyone knows, conservatives are extremely protective of their money. My personal fascination with money is truly extreme. In fact, sometimes I value my money more than your life itself.
Yes, I am sorry but it is true. For example, if someone says to me; Give me your money or your next door neighbor’s life - you’re gone my friend.
But that flaw in my character doesn’t bother me all that much; most people, both liberals, and conservatives, seem to have that same flaw. What really bothers me is when my love of money turns around and bites me that I get especially annoyed.
I have a neighbor who also considers himself a conservative and he bit himself pretty badly not too long ago. My neighbor is a Snow Bird. Each year his vehicle would suddenly appear next door and I would go wandering over and visit. We would drink some cheap wine and eat some ham and cheese and talk about how dumb the rest of the world was/is.
Well, this one year I go wandering over and there’s my good buddy sitting there in his bathrobe watching a Do-wop DVD and eating a bag of marshmallows.
“How’s it going?” I say. He gives me a big grin and right off I notice that there is something different about my friend this year.
“What the heck happened to all your teeth?” I shout.
“Oh, it’s a long story.”
“Well, you can tell me about what happened to your teeth or we can discuss world peace.”
“Okay, we might as well stick with reality. I have had this dentist for a number of years now and every year I go for my annual visit. He drills some cavities and fills a few teeth. One day I start thinking and I figure that this guy had filled more of my teeth in the past few years than I have in my head. So I get out all my bills and sure enough this clown has filled like seventy-two of my teeth. I don’t have seventy-two teeth.
“So I call him up on the phone and I say; How the heck can you fill seventy-two of my teeth when I’ve only got thirty-two or thirty-four or something like that?”
“And what did he say?”
“He says bla bla bla, dribble dribble dribble. He gives me this line of trash and I finally hang up on him. So the next day I jump into the van and I head over to this clinic and I have every darn tooth in my head pulled out.”
“I see. You don’t think that you might have been a little premature?”
“What am I going to do let the guy cheat me for the rest of my life?”
“No ... but how about seeing another dentist?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. You go down to the new guy and first off he’s got to take sonar-grams and x-rays of your whole body. Then he’s going to tell me that the last guy cheated me and did all my dental work wrong. I’m going to need a whole frontal lobotomy and a rectal dichotomy and twenty thousand dollars later he’s refilling all the same teeth that the other clown filled five years ago. You can’t win with them people.”
“So now you have no teeth?’
“I got plenty of teeth.” He reached into his pajama pocket and pulled out a little plastic bag with his new set of uppers and lowers in it.
“Those look real nice,” I said. “And how long do you have to keep them in your pocket?”
“I don’t have to keep them in my pocket. I can put them in my mouth whenever I want to.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“So why have you got them in a plastic bag in your pajama pocket?”
“Well, they hurt like a bugger when I put them in my mouth. It’s unbelievable, it feels like there is another person living in there.”
“Right ... so ah, let’s change the subject. How are the marshmallows?”
“Great, have some? You know I haven’t eaten marshmallows in years. When is the last time you’ve had a marshmallow?”
“Oh, I stopped eating them a while back.”
“Why?”
“They made my teeth hurt.”

Richard E. Noble has been a resident of Eastpoint for around thirty years now. He has authored two books: “A Summer with Charlie” which is currently listed on Amazon.com and “Hobo-ing America” which should be listed on Amazon in the not too distant future. Most recently he completed his first novel “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” which will be published soon.