A TRIP TO THE DENTIST

 Do you know anyone who relishes a trip to the dentist? Even the dentist him/her-self? Even if you get to pick a treasure from the treasure box! I suppose a masochist might look forward to it, or someone might really be desperate for a new toothbrush and small toothpaste, but seriously .....

  I love my dentists as people. They are a lovely couple, and we have 'been together' lo these many a year (decades). They are sweet, kind, and expert in their knowledge and application. They have held me when I cried at yet another dental catastrophe. In fact, all of my dentists have either been our friends from before or after we became clients. But - I continue to still hate going to the dentist! Yet I go. 

Shall we say it is a necessary evil? Use what phrase pleases you, it simply boils down to this: there're times we must do something that goes against our grain for one simple reason. It is for our benefit. We must be grown up about it. Ha!! Try asking too many people to act their ages rather than their IQs. Not always a successful maneuver.

Well, America needs to visit the dentist. We have too many open, festering cavities, infection seeping into the nation's bloodstream, poisoning us. The cure gets harsher and ever more difficult the longer we postpone facing the truth. Yet, postpone we do. Again, and again. Well, time for the dentist. Time to grow up, boys and girls, time to open wide and say aaahhh.

"We all were here; we saw what happened," said McConnell. "It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That's what it was."

 That's what it was."

And there you have it. McConnell might actually be getting ready to sit down in the chair and face the drill. Maybe. It is a start. He has much back infection to deal with, but maybe, just maybe... But we need more intrepid souls willing to face that drill, willing to sit in that chair and hear the music playing, face their own music long delayed.

Trump continues to maintain and trumpet loud and clear that he was right in his insane attempt to overthrow the results of a legitimate election. He does not like it; hence, it must be wrong. But things do not work that way in the dentist's chair. Like it or not that cavity will be drilled, and one has to hang on to those armrests, close the eyes and pray long and hard to the dentist god. However, nothing will stop that brewing infection other than a trip to the dentist, a good drill and hand to guide it and some follow-up antibiotics, insuring no return of this deadly infection. It is what it is and will be what it must be. We hope.

There are many symptoms that can overwhelm all our efforts. A head dentist, Roberts, is losing his control over the ever more crazed extremists on his bench. And extremists are what they are. Forget conservative. 

We are being told to park some cars outside lest they catch fire. Well, this nation has already caught fire, is burning, even as we frack away the water, shaking terra firma even more. The tooth loosens. Can it be tightened, saved? A coin toss it is.

We have the equivalent of that horrific moose attack aimed at the democratic structure of our nation. We are being stomped, threatened, losing positions of safety. The infection spreads, the moose proliferate, riot, threaten, and the end.....? Are your teeth feeling looser, less secure in your gums? All of ours are, whether we accept the truth or not. A visit from the tooth fairy is valueless.

The world, wishing to join in the fray, be part of the gang, faces a financial crisis, though one financial expert assures us "I think the market correction will be modest, relative to what we've seen in the past when you have a gigantic correction,"     Would that we could believe him, trust in his dental expertise, even as we face other drills of fact vs. fiction.

Sick people are looking forward to testing out new weapons, all the better to kill, in the horrific ever-growing possibilities of open warfare in Ukraine. The choices are not good, equally terrible. To kowtow means to simply avoid for now that trip to the dentist, a painful, but necessary one and at the end, an unavoidable one. Albeit one that we might not survive. To go head on, to be brave and draw a line in the sand... well, that sand is on a wobbly foundation, the drill needs new bits and where are they? Nowhere to be found. Missing the guiding hands of expert and moral dentists as well. Between the devil and the deep blue sea are our dentists, their drills and their patients.

So now what? Well, there is a little four-year-old boy who was, is, one of the bravest warriors ever, willing to challenge his particular form of dentist chair and drill, fought his battles twice, and won.   "He was a real trooper and endured so much." 

We need to do the same. 

Difficult. Scary. We cringe as the drill draws ever closer.

And now, off I am to the dentist this morning.

  OOOOWWWWW!!!  I am a coward. What can I say?