granny pigs and wooden teeth

Today I realized that my future son-in-law Michael, and his daughter Hailey fit in just perfectly with our family and our skewed view of the world.

We were sitting on the couch, lined up like ducks in a row. I was stretched out on the lounge chair, semi-awake. The discussion between Michael and Hailey was about someone's guinea pigs, and something about a rabbit, and someone kissing either the rabbit or the guinea pig. My ears started listening at that point. This is just the kind of conversation I hear around here all the time. When Michael said something about the rabbit being put in the same cage as the guinea pigs, and one of the guinea pigs biting another guinea pig and making it squeal, I added my two cents worth.

Me: one of our kids used to call them granny pigs.
Michael: (laughing) granny pigs...
Me: Maddie you need to brush your teeth when you finish that tootsie roll pop.
Maddie: (smiling at me with blue teeth) why?
Me: because your teeth are blue.
Maddie: so is my tongue.
Me: Maddie! You only get one set of permanent teeth and they have to last the rest of your life.

Gramps decides to help me convince her at this point.

Gramps: yes Maddie, if you don't take care of them, you end up having to get new teeth like me. I have had several teeth replaced you know.

Maddie: (rolling her eyes in an I know it all and you can't scare me into brushing my teeth kind of way) YES, I know Gramps, you got a gold tooth, and a wooden tooth.

At this point Steve and Michael look at each other and burst into laughter. I roll my eyes and realize my whole attempt to teach serious dental care to Maddie just went out the window.


...life is good. ~cath

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teeth, tootsie pops and plane karma

I have a condition.  Plane karma.  It manifests every time I decide to fly somewhere and buy a ticket.  I have had some doozie things happen to me on flights all over the United States.  (You can read about a couple of them here and here if you are curious.)  Some of it I brought on my own head, and some of it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting smacked in the head with stupid.

I have had a long streak of what I would call the absence of karma.  Maybe writing about it was the reason, or maybe it was just the fact that I was trying to avoid doing anything stupid.  Either way it has been nice.

Then yesterday I talked to my daughter on the phone because she had broken a tooth on a popcorn hull.  Wait, I thought, this is the daughter who hates popcorn.  Won't touch it.  Well, it turns out she will, if it is covered in marshmallow goo.  She was worried about pain that might arrive ANY SECOND, and I was reassuring her and thinking to myself that would never be me, I have teeth of steel.

Wrong.  I decided to enjoy a Tootsie Pop on the way home from the office yesterday.  I'd gone in to get my paperwork pile (that reproduces like rabbits) under control before I leave on Tuesday.  On a plane.

The only thing left when I bit down was the thin candy coating over the chewy Tootsie center.  Do any of you remember that owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial who asks how many licks does it take to get to the center, right before crunching it on about the third lick?  Well, I was careful and had about worn the taste buds off my tongue before I bit down.  Felt that satisfying crunch and chewy chocolate goodness dance across the remaining taste buds in my mouth.  Perhaps a bit crunchier than normal.  I swallowed and then about a second later I felt a sharp edge on my tooth.  The place where the dentist had put a small filling because the tooth had broken there before.  (Instructing me to avoid eating hard things like popcorn and hard candy while he was filling it.)

I had just swallowed my filling.

I dialed Wretch back and told her what happened in between a long string of expletives.

We laughed through broken teeth.

I have to get this tooth fixed before I fly because I can't keep my tongue from finding it, and this is what my mouth looks like when I do:

Plane karma returns.      


...and life is good. ~cath
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