Newsletter – Nov. 29,2024
Two days after draping Christmas lights across our front bushes we got the first snow of the season. I was patting myself on the back while taking this photo, but to give credit where credit is due, it was Debbie’s initiative to trim those bushes making it all possible. She’s a go-getter gardener while I’m a reluctant one.
You know what else I’m reluctant about? Getting a tooth pulled.
As I’ve explained to many dentists and their assistants, whatever you may be doing in my mouth, it’s far worse in my imagination. I hum tunelessly to distract myself from my own fears. Like a white noise machine, it disrupts the brainwaves that deliver images of a bloodbath like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
So I’m lying back in the dentist chair, inhaling a mix of oxygen and nitrous oxide—laughing gas, hah, not in my experience—knowing that the dentist is running late because he got stuck in traffic. You know those stories of surgeons who accidentally amputate the wrong limb? I don’t want him to arrive in a frenzy, knowing that people are waiting. I don’t want him to be in a hurry to catch up with his schedule and pull out the wrong tooth!
It’s not like he can put it back.
He arrives, introduces himself, and I immediately pat him on the shoulder and sympathize with the traffic situation. “I’ve lived in LA,” I tell him, “I know what it’s like. You’re gonna need a moment to take a few deep breaths.” And study the tooth chart.
There ya go, Eric, establish rapport. Let him talk about idling on the interstate, let him get it out of his system. We’re friends now. He’s not about to pull the wrong tooth out of a friend’s mouth.
The assistant joins him and they compare plans for the weekend. She had planned to put up Christmas lights, but failed to get them out before the snowfall.
“I did!” I slurred, the numbness starting to take a hold of my cheek. I pulled out my phone and shared the picture above which they admired. More rapport, more camaraderie. Pretty soon I’d be humming tunelessly, but at least I was a third person in the room, not just another mouth full of teeth.
“This one will probably come out in pieces,” the dentist warned me.
“Because it has a crown?” I asked.
“Yes, and the root canal that was done many years ago.”
That’s the right tooth! I was still fearful of the procedure, but at least I knew it would be the right one.
I survived, of course, to write this harrowing account of Eric The Tuneless Hummer.
TTFN!
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 