The Old Coot can smile again

By Merlin Lessler —

I chipped my front tooth the other day. It’s been with me, and intact, since I was seven. I did it when I bit into a plum and smashed into the pit. Unlike little Jack Horner, who pulled out a plum, I pulled out a piece of ivory.

I’ve broken a molar or two over the years. One on an unpopped popcorn kernel and another in a tug of war with a Sugar Daddy. It yanked out the entire side of the tooth that was held together with a few pins and a filling. It’s since been fitted with a $1,000 cap. The Sugar Daddy is a thing of the past for me.

The chipped front tooth has been fixed, thanks to the skills of my dentist, whose name I promised not to mention. But for some reason, I never follow through on that promise. It’s Pam Bouton. She’s bailed me out more than once. I’m sure she is astonished at the lengths I go to threaten the existence of those precious ivories. Most likely thinking, “Will he ever learn?”

But I know what she’s thinking; I recognize the look. I see it on my wife’s face all the time. It doesn’t matter, I can now continue through life with a smile on my face, framed by an intact set of choppers.    

The trouble with a decent smile is that you are no longer eligible to be a spokesperson for your town after a weather disaster hits: tornado, flood, hurricane, landslide. That sort of thing.

You can’t be the guy the TV news reporter looks for to ask your thoughts on the disaster. They seek the goober who has a broken or missing set of choppers. He or she always scratches their head and says, “I’ve lived here all my life and never saw anything like this.”

Nope, I no longer qualify, thanks to the skills of Pam Bouton.  

Comments? Send to the paper or to mlessler7@gmail.com.