What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Day 2 – Shark Teeth

I am going to go back and write about the buried treasure (aka thirteen copies of Force of Will) I found on my summer vacation (Day 1), but I decided it would be more fun to do this one, first.

So my sister was reading this (presumably) worthwhile book by Bill Bryson called At Home. I have no opinion on this book (having not read it yet) other than to give a big thumbs up around a list of causes of death in London in 1758.

“Most deaths, as might be expected, were from smallpox, fever, consumption or old age, but among the more miscellaneous causes listed (with original spellings) were:

• choaked with fat – 1
• itch – 2
• froze to death – 2
• St Anthony’s fire – 4
• lethargy – 4
• sore throat – 5
• worms – 6
• killed themselves – 30
• French pox – 46
• lunatick – 72
• drowned – 109
• mortification – 154
• teeth – 644″

I was planning on sharing this list regardless because I thought it was hilarious. However the hundreds of death by “teeth” really struck home yesterday, when I went to the dentist.

I have had some inflammation / sensitivity around my bottom wisdom teeth… forever. Since my wisdom teeth came in a dozen years ago or whatever they never felt particularly comfy; but a few weeks ago I sliced open my bottom gums flossing, and they kind of never got better. At least three weeks went by and my gums just weren’t healing.

That’s weird, I thought. Well, at least I have a dentist appointment coming up when I am home for summer vacation.

At first my dentist said that “I definitely had a canker sore back there,” but I was like, “If it is a canker sore, it is the most invincible canker sore of all time because it hasn’t gotten better in weeks; also there are two of them.”

Wasn’t a canker sore.

Turns out I had little bits of sharp bone / bony structures / bone spurs jutting out from under each of my bottom wisdom teeth!

The only thing he could imagine is that they were vestiges of my baby teeth that had never come up (I have never had any kind of dental issues as an adult… No cavities, no teeth-pulling, nothing beyond a little nighttime grinding and bonding once).

Then I imagined all those X-Men, X-Files, and / or House episodes where they find teeth in a kid’s brain or something.

“Actually we found incisors in your brain.”

“How did teeth get in my brain?”

“They were your twin brother’s.”

“I don’t have a twin brother.”

“No, now you don’t… It’s because you ate him in utero.”

Ew.

Professor X, you cad.

Anyway the left-hand side he just broke off with that scraper-looking thing, but the right hand side wouldn’t break, so he had to slice open the gum and sand off the point.

I didn’t feel a thing!

Not until the Novocaine wore off anyway 🙂

Today, we are off to the roller coaster capitol of the world!

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LOVE
MIKE