Floss on the Mill

Listen up kids: take care of your teeth.

First and foremost: make sure you have good genes. My mother had troublesome teeth. Lamented all of her lifetime that she had worn braces for twelve years to adjust her “lantern jaw,” which, in spite of the orthodontia, went with her to her grave and passed on to me. She had a close relationship with several dental professionals and was forever trying new appliances, methods and tortuous procedures. Yowch!

My father, on the other hand, up until his mid-nineties, had spectacular choppers. He had a dentist that made him come in once in a while just so he could to view the perfection.

Brush and floss, brush and floss: I have heard it a million times. And now and then I actually do both things. As a younger person, I had my share of cavities, but generally I have had average to good dental health. In spite of my uneventful history, my semiannual trips to the hygienist are a study in nervous tension. I’m always convinced that something ugly will be uncovered.

When I was much younger, my fear was so great that I avoided the dentist chair for years. When my wisdom teeth arrived, I was lucky that they grew in without incident. Even so, all four of them had to be yanked, and that experience involved such a combination of medications that by the time the dentist was done, he could have yanked out the rest for all I care. Charlie Sheen on a Saturday night had nothing on me.

As my hair and gum line recede, I have found a dentist who keeps me in line. They call me every six months to remind me of an impending cleaning. I always leave the place with a gleaming smile and an armload of free tooth care paraphernalia.

A few years back, they noted a loose molar, way in the back. The hygienist called in the dentist and he reached in and wiggled it. Over the ensuing six month intervals, they attempted a few procedures to save the tooth. Alas, about a year ago, I was told it should be yanked.

“You don’t have to do it right away,” the dentist explained, “but it’s going to have to come out.

I was in denial. Most of the time “old uncle Wiggly,” felt as firmly attached as all the others. Now and then, though, it would become shockingly loose. But, there was no pain, so I ignored the issue.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, it became infected, painful and really wiggly. I supplemented my supplements with over-the-counter painkillers with some relief, but yesterday I called the dentist’s bluff. I rang the office and –wouldn’t you know – they had time for me this morning.

Nice fellow, my dentist. He poked me with Novocain, calmed my nerves, and after the right side of my face was numb, “lifted” the tooth. It didn’t make any champagne cork noises. There was no splattering carnage. The dentist didn’t have to put his knee on my chest for leverage. Best of all, I felt nothing except the sudden loss of a tooth that had been with me for over 40 years. I asked him to wrap it up in a piece of gauze and he was happy to oblige.

It sits, as I type this, in a bleach bath. After it’s cleaned up, I will put it in the same old Kodak Film canister with my wisdom teeth. God knows what kind of macabre art project I will create with this collection. I told the dentist I’d hold on to it and maybe if technology improves, he can put it back into my face in a few years.

I took today off to rest and catch up with a full DVR of mind-numbing television baloney. There is a hole in my head which I need like a hole in the head. The Novocain is beginning to wear off and a dull throb is filling the hole.

A few years ago, my father got dentures. It took him over 90 years to acquire them. His parents were in their 90s when they were fitted and I am thinking maybe if I save enough teeth, I can have dentures constructed of my own teeth.

Meanwhile I will brush and floss myself silly. Watch out Steve Buscemi!

Where’s the Advil?

Irene Irony

We collect a lot of things. In our basement, for example, we have a stack of grocery bags from Trader Joe’s, a bag of unused wine bottle corks and several bags of dryer lint.

Hear me out. As artists, all of these things –including several Costco empty mixed nut jugs – are of potential value, will come in handy down the road, when we are struck with sudden fits of artistic inspiration. It happens.

Meanwhile, I am forever contemplating hauling a lot of this stuff away. Not too long ago, I started tackle the garage again. There is a now pile of stuff I intend haul away as soon as I have a moment in my busy schedule.

Last week, Mother Nature had some plans of her own. Hurricane Irene was roaring up the coast. All hell was predicted to break loose. Low-lying parts of New York City were being evacuated, we were watching 24-hours of overfed Americans nailing plywood over their windows. Store shelves were emptied of batteries and water. All hell, indeed.

Our concerns on Rusty Hinge Road never change. Aside from occasional gun shots and loud arguments out on the street, it is water we fear most. The wind is a consideration, of course, and there have been quite a few large trees clobbered by previous storms, but it doesn’t take much rain to cause a flood in our basement.

We bought the house on a dry October day twelve years ago when the hole on the basement floor had a rusty sump pump in place along with some spider webs, so it seemed that, like so many homes in New England, we’ll take on some water now and then.

I can’t remember the first incident, but I am pretty sure it was because of a glitch with the washing machine control buttons. If you don’t push the “load” button just right, the washer will fill with water, overflow and keep running until one of us discovers the flood, shrieks, turns off the washer and spends the next three days cleaning up the mess.

With the storm imminent, we did all the things we thought prudent; we moved the lawn furniture to safety, made sure we had cat food, checked our supply of 10,000 candles, and made sure our one flashlight, “Abner,” had batteries. Done, done and done.

The sky darkened and the wind picked up. Rain started to pelt our new roof. The bathroom skylight, recently installed and a source of ceaseless, unpredictable dripping, held tight throughout, thanks to an expensive repair job I just hired out. When I went to bed that evening, the lights were blazing and the cable channels were predicting Armageddon.

My bedside alarm was flashing 12:00 – 12:00 – 12:00, indicating a power flicker, sometime as I dozed but assuring me that we still had power. It was raining, and the highest parts of the nearest trees were swaying back and forth with malevolence. Out on the street, crushed sprite bottles and empty food wrappers collected around the curbside grate. You could hear the water rushing into the sewers. Tiny bits of shredded leaves had coated all surfaces at ground level. The streets were empty of mufferless cars, deep, buzzy bass notes and pedestrians. A large limb was down to the north, blocking the road, but mercifully away from the overhead powerlines.

“The pump isn’t working,” Melissa announced. She had gotten up and surveyed the situation.

When the ground around the house at Rusty Hinge Road gets saturated with rain, water seeps in from under the cement floor. Tiny, almost imperceptible, cracks begin to emit water. Puddles form and the previously mentioned hole – the location of the rusty sump pump – fills up with water. Left unchecked, the basement will, even without augmentation by the washer, begin to fill up with water.

I had fashioned a pump attached to a float, to activate once the water reached a certain height. If all went as designed, the pump would empty the incoming water out a cellar window via a red rubber hose.

Still groggy from sleep, and grumpy by tradition, I came to inspect the pump and after growling like a bear, discovered that the Ground Fault Interupter (GFI) outlet, into which the pump was plugged, was doing its job and shutting itself off. After all, it was I who set up the pump system and it had been known to deliver shocks. So I found a less persnickety plug, switched on the pump, and the water was on its way out.

Unfortunately for us, so was the power – just as the water level in the hole began to recede. Powerless, the rest of the bailing of the basement would have to be done, by us, with a bucket, illuminated by Abner, for as long as the water continued to rise.

We made do. The rain slowed down. We soon figured out we only had to bail once an hour. In a few hours, the sky got brighter, the neighbors started to come out and look around and fire up their noisy lawn equipment.

Funny how we are so reliant on electricity. Every time I entered a room, I automatically went for the light switch. We have a gas stove that worked, but we had to light it with a match. It felt quaint. We had missed the worse of it. My sister in Vermont and my cousin in the Catskills had not.

At one point, I wanted some coffee. And I realized I could make it on the stove but I’d have to find the old manual coffee pot. I swore I had seen it on the cluttered shelves of the basement. I grabbed Abner and went for a look. All I could find was a bag full of lint.

Completely dry.

Irene, you rene. We all rene… ben.guerrero@sbcgobal.net