My tongue is crazy killin'. That's for sure.
Tuesday night I'm eating a few leftover chicken strips. I wasn't home for dinner and so now I get the scraps left by the ravenous hoard I call my children. Surprisingly, when I got home there are a few chicken strips left over. I'm grateful. The stars correctly aligned for a rare confluence of events which provided this rare providence. On Tuesday afternoon there weren't any dinner groceries in the house and Gailyn was too busy to go shopping. So Stephanie went to the store with Gailyn's debit card. Stephanie has two consistent purchasing traits. Stephanie buys items as close to bar food as she can, and Stephanie overbuys. She came home with enough chicken strips to feed a party of 25. There are 9 of us in the household – though one of them is 16 months old. Actually, Stephanie got it about right because there were only 3 strips left. If she had bought enough for a party of 24 then I wouldn't have gotten any. This is bad for the grocery budget, but quite good for the "ravenous hoard" that I call my children; and this is also a plus for the breadwinner who is absent when the bread is served.
I like chicken. There are many ways to prepare a good hen. I am amenable to most of them. Chicken strips are okay with me. These strips were breaded, not the best way to do chicken but the kids like them, and with a little left over MickeyD's barbeque sauce they are just like giant nuggets. They were a little cold and a little hard but I rejected Gailyn's offer to warm them up for me. A few chomps in and I got a little crunch over on the right side of my mouth. There is this really hard piece and it feels like maybe a chicken bone got pressed in with the meat, but the strips are cold and it could be just hardened from sitting around. A few more grinding chews and I am convinced that it really is more than gristle or hardened breading. I try but I can't dislodge it from the rest of the chicken, so I pull the disgusting wad out of my mouth and mine for the offender. What do ya know – it's a bone after all, sort of. It's a tooth. Since chickens don't have teeth (right?), I'm thinking, what the ….is this mine? 
Sure was. I had cracked apart a wisdom tooth. It hurt a little. Like a child with a bug I hold my prize out to my wife. Looky at what I have? Gailyn is just looking at me like, Oh, My Gosh! She immediately goes into nurse mode, "Which tooth is THAT? Are you okay?" Sure I am. I grin and inform her that, of course, I'm okay. I am a super tough, testosterone secretin', funky gym sock smellin', toolbox carryin', big truck ownin', red-meat eatin' macho type of guy. Where's the Tylenol? AND, I ask, just what does the Tooth Fairy (hereafter known as TF) give a 44 year old for a 24 year old tooth? My certified dental assistant of a wife tells me to forget about that – she knows TF and there isn't a payoff for broken off pieces. My night is ruined. I'm depressed. If TF has no time for me, then I won't clap for fairies anymore. My childhood has completely disoriented my perception of fairies anyway. My mother told me that the TF is a woman. My father said TF was a guy. They both had anecdotal stories to prove their assertions. TF taught me that one of my parents is delusional.Wednesday sucked! Literally. The tooth had split right where my tongue hits when I chew or talk. The new edge constantly stabbed my tongue with a peaked and jagged spike. Pain; I don't like it. I kept sucking and rolling back my tongue so it wouldn't hit against my tooth. You just don't realize how unstable your tongue is until the unruly member hurts every time you talk. I don't have to speak much on Wednesday – so it's kind of okay. But the tooth is throbbing. I can count my pulse by the waves throbbing through my tooth. I have raided the medicine cabinet for abandoned pain medications. Malyn's Darvocet from her same day surgery is now in my lunch bag. I'm probably breaking a few federal statutes by having it, but I figure what the hey, if they take me into custody I can get free dental in the slammer. Even so I'm not real comfortable taking the Darvocet. I decide to that it is time for proactive measures. I'm going to break off the spiked top and pack the thing with Anbesol until I can see the dentist or the nerve settles down.
On Wednesday night I find the hardest thing to chew that I can find (dinner) and start chewing on that side. Pretty soon, clink. Part 2 breaks off. Instantly it feels so much better in there. The pressure is gone. The throbbing is gone. I take a few happy bites. I can live with this. Then this burning sensation runs up the side of my tongue. Did I make a mistake? Now there is a sharp edge along the side of the tooth, not on top like it was before. I touch it with my fingers. Wow, it is sharp like a piece of glass. The sharp edge is laying flat against my tongue. My tongue isn't impaling itself on the top of my tooth anymore, now it is constantly rubbing against it. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, my tongue isn't being poked anymore, it is being flayed. Eating is painful, swallowing is painful, talking is murderous. Thursday, I call the dentist office. I should have already done this. But my intense dread of the dentist can only be overridden by my intense dread of pain. We have reached the tipping point. The receptionist asks:
Do you have tooth pain?
You mean, in my tooth? Not really that much. But I have pain because of my tooth. My tongue is getting cut up on the jagged edge where the tooth broke off.
I see, so this isn't a dental emergency.
No, it's not really an emergency. (Because to me – emergencies involve shock paddles and the "jaws of life") The tooth itself doesn't hurt (this response is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Besides, what the heck is the definition of a dental emergency anyway?)
Soonest we can get you in is end of January.
Nothing sooner?
No, but if we have an opening you're on the priority list.
Priority list?
If you have any earaches let us know and we'll prescribe antibiotics.
I have a sore throat now.
Yeah, it is flu season.
The flu? So it's not the tooth that has acutely broken off and is causing trauma to my tongue.
Oh, probably not. But you can call us back in a few days if you still have a sore throat. Have a nice day, sir.
Thursday at work they called security to check my blood alcohol. I'm slurring my words too much. When that comes up zero, I'm sent to neurology for a screening. I finally make them understand that it is my tooth that is doing it. By the way, the three words are apple, pencil, river. No dementia presenting yet, but I'm going back next week, they want to be sure. Wendy up in the executive suite shoots me a message, can we meet today? I'm a little fearful about what she needs so urgently that she wants a meeting today. I can just imagine her saying, Sorry, but you're freaking out the staff and the patients. We're sending you home until this weird tic thing goes away. But she doesn't mention it at all. She has normal business to take care of. During the opening small talk she asks, "Why weren't you at the staff party?" I try to explain, "Acuz my toot iz urtin my tung." "What?" "Acuz my toot iz urtin my tung." "What?" "I wuz bizzy." "Oh."
Friday I was eating a piece of bread. I was eating on the left side to avoid getting on the tooth. But that wasn't working because it was pushing my tongue over onto the right side and scraping the wisdom tooth. The tooth itself didn't hurt much so I figured whatever, I'll eat on that side and keep my tongue over on the non-traumatized side. The bread actually packed down in the hole in the tooth and created a soft little bumper on the sharp edge. It was wonderful. My tongue wasn't hitting the sharp edge. The problem was – the bread dissolved and I couldn't keep a wad in there. So I decided to try gum, but that wouldn't stay put. Would a mouth-guard work? Dental wax? An idea began to form in my mind. Fix the tooth yourself, dummy! But how?
I'd had it. Something had to happen. Saturday I went into the garage and started hunting for primitive dentistry tools. I was ready to go all Tom Hanks in Cast Away. If I had a rock and coconut we would have been golden. I could have turned all the Wilson basketball, soccer balls, baseball gloves and golf stuff toward the far wall and just done the deed. Unfortunately I didn't have a coconut. So I grabbed some pliers and tried to yank the tooth out. The pliers only slipped and nearly knocked me out when it hit my palate. Head spinning and dizzy I made another attempt. But the first try had taught me a lesson and I was too shy to really yank again. I tried to use the pliers to break the edge of the tooth. Maybe chip off some of the edge. It wasn't working. The pliers slide and I hit myself in the lip. It started to feel fat immediately. I obviously wasn't coordinated enough for frontier dentistry.
Putting the pliers down and having no success with its brothers and sisters, I moved on down the shelf. The dremel spoke to me. A dremel is a small power tool used for burnishing and sanding rough edges. It can also be used to cut small objects like screws. nails, and, though not specifically mentioned in the user's manual, the inside of someone's mouth. I figured that any attempt to use the dremel would probably go awry. Just one slip using a burnishing pad would rip the side of tongue off, open my gums and wrap the inside of my cheeks around the burnisher. I'd be on the list for the 2009 Darwin Award Winners. The Darwin Awards are given to those "who improve the species...by accidentally removing themselves from it!" 
I don't crave fame in that fashion. Comedy is not funny when they are laughing at you.
I spotted some sandpaper on the shelf. Perhaps the burnishing principle would be the same but safer on a more manual level. I had gritty sandpaper and fine sandpaper. Neither seemed appropriate for primitive dentistry. I didn't have a file that would work either, so Saturday night I went to Wal-Mart to look for a small file. The only thing they had was this 18 inch tool file. I would have had to be a sword swallower to use it. Inspiration met ingenuity and I went over to cosmetics. I bought a small foot callus remover and a metal nail file. I was armed and ready.
At 1:30 in the morning I was sitting on the family couch, watching a History channel program with Hannibal slicing off Roman heads at Lake Trasimene. I had the foot scrapper in my mouth trying to round off the sharp edges of my tooth. It was a snapshot across time. Almost two and half millennia separated us but we were brothers in arms. Just me and the Barcas, wielding the power of steel to control our destinies – or whatever metal the callus scrapper was made of. I worked it this way and that but I couldn't get the callus file deep enough into my mouth to get a sawing action on it. So I gave up.
I opened the nail file and found that it was a workable tool. I watched Ducarius catch Flaminius and slay the impetuous general as I felt little gritty particles began to fill my mouth. YES! Go! GO! GO! I kept up the sawing. Back and forth, back and forth, relief would be so sweet. And the whole operation wasn't even that painful. I pulled the file out of my mouth and reached back there to check the progress. I wanted to feel how dull the edge had already become. Wow! It was still sharp. I scratched the back of my fingernail on the tooth. It actually cut a grease in the nail plate. Evidently, enamel is harder than keratin. That was odd. The tooth should have been rounded off more than that by now. So, if there is no change in the sharp little pike in my mouth, what was all that grit in my mouth? I looked at the file and saw that the little metal etching, the file part of the file, was worn off. Evidently, enamel is harder than nail file metal. Unbelievable! Who knew? 
On the screen Hannibal betrayed the surrendering legions and marched them off the screen to be sold into Carthaginian slavery. I conclude that you actually do retain knowledge better when it is coupled with pain. Abandoning Hannibal to history, I sadly shook my head at the L'Oreal file, flipped it onto the coffee table and went to bed. For the next several hours I kept spitting out little micrometer size pellets of metal; none of it enamel. In the half conscious state between sleep and awake I ponder the problem. Diamonds are the hardest substance; do I want to sacrifice my wife's wedding ring? Even half alert I realize that choice could cause me more pain than my current situation.
Today at work, I'm meeting with Sarah, our PR rep, because Renee has successfully *delegated* a committee assignment to me. They want me to help with the employee newsletter. Sarah keeps saying "What?" every time I speak.
Tho, 'is tis owen obe a 'lossy? (So, is this going be a glossy?)
What?
'is tis owen obe a 'lossy? (Is this going to be a glossy?)
I don't get what you're saying
Ta nuethletta, r 'ewe 'oing to ooze signy papah? (The newsletter, are we going to use shiny paper?)
I like the way he thinks. If I could only figure out what he is saying.
I'm calling the dental office receptionist back. I'm telling her that I have more pain than she can imagine. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'm at a 15. It's time to break out the jaws of life.
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