Saturday, January 27, 2007

I suppose it's a bit early to celebrate victory over time

I mean, my new tooth is only a temporary. Somewhere, deep inside a sterile cavern, they're crafting the little piece of plaster that will become my front tooth forevermore, with any luck. Complete with phony stains and white discolorations to match the real one. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to break the other one, since my fakey looks so much better. But now that I've come toward the end of this ordeal, of which feeling ugly for 3-plus months was only a small part, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, even me.

That said, it's nice to be back in the saddle again. I went out with two of the roommates last night, and met some of one's cute girl friends and knew I could bring my smile out again. Good times. I missed that. A lot. I feel like when a football coach talks about a veteran quarterback opening up the team's entire playbook; heavy flirtation is back on the table for me, and so is my entire ostentatious wardrobe.

It took forever. They only scheduled me for half an hour because the dentist's assistant thought they were only going to the first part of the fix, so when I insisted I wanted my crown that day, the dentist had to keep running off to other patients and coming back to me. I didn't want to be a pain, really I didn't, but I made up my mind that I wasn't going another day looking like a gap-toothed hick, so if I had to wait in that chair from 7 in the morning until they closed, I was getting my work done.

Thus I had a lot of time to sit still and think about nothing, which made me wonder what exactly they use to create a fake tooth. Some sort of crazy synthetic fabric, I'm sure, which probably produces five times its own weight in industrial waste. Look: it's fun to look back fondly on the past, before technology and rushing around ruined the human soul and material earth. But if not for modern dentistry I'd be bound forever to an ugly hole in my mouth or some awful sort of antiquated remedy just begging for infection. I'm awfully hard on people sometimes for their environmental non-concern, but I'll tell you something: if I had to choose between living my life feeling like I was ugly or getting my smile fixed my something that will eventually destroy the earth, I'm not sure what I'd pick, but I'm certainly leaning toward the latter. Should humanity endure for many more generations, that's great, but if I have to live my life utterly unhappy, then I don't care.

Like I said before, I'm an altruist's altruist at work, so give me my off-hour selfishness.

1 comment:

loveleethought said...

You'll always be beautiful to me. Well, unless you stop being caustic and calling me sugar. Then we're through.