I Could Be Wrong, But... |
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Black Teeth and Bubonic Plaque
People way smarter than me say that when Life presents us with a gift, whatever it is, we must accept it. They say whether the gift Life presents us with is finding a spray of coins on the sidewalk, just waiting for us to pick them up, or a doctor calmly giving us a diagnosis of testicular cancer, or a cop handing us a traffic ticket and not bothering to hide his smirk as he salts our wound with the command to “have a nice day,” or someone telling us that they love us and will always be there for us, we must accept the gift. Sometimes, Life presents us with a two-part gift that we are meant to accept, and then to do something with. Like that 20-inch cast iron skillet your wife thought you’d be thrilled to receive on Christmas morning and that the Goodwill people truly were thrilled to receive a week later. I think of these two-part gifts as Door Prizes—because the second part of the gift presents us with a choice of many doorways, any one of which will open to us when we choose it. Life recently presented me with the multiple Door Prize of a root canal, my first ever, a crown for a broken tooth, and a bill from my dentist for $2,000. When driving back to my office, the left side of my face numb and drool dropping on my shirt collar, Life was so moved with affection for me that it then presented me with the bonus Door Prize of the transmission in my car suddenly failing. When a traffic light turned green and I stepped on the accelerator, the car’s engine roared but the car barely moved forward. I would have lost a race to a glacier. Yet, when the car managed to build to a speed of 5 miles per hour, it began running properly and I even caught up to some of the many drivers who had blasted past me while blaring their horns. Until the next red light stopped me. I had a choice. I could feel bad and put my energy into imagining a future that would include another $2,000 bill, this one from my Volvo mechanic. And I could have gone on to imagine a future beyond that in which I would be invited to the wedding of my Volvo mechanic’s daughter who was marrying my dentist’s son now that both had graduated, debt-free, from Harvard. Or I could laugh. I could choose to laugh at the absurd timing and succession of these experiences. So I chuckled, and drooled, and turned up the stereo, and felt pretty good. And a funny thing happened when I left my office a few hours later and got in my car to drive home. The numbness in my jaw was gone, I had sold thousands of dollars of stuff, and the transmission of my car worked perfectly. It hasn’t pulled a prank since. But I shall now digress and tell you about my most recent near-death experience. This past Thursday, when washing my hands in the restroom in my office, smiling for no apparent reason, (which I seem to be doing a lot more of the older I get; perhaps this is the happy approach of senility?) I noticed that all of my lower front teeth appeared gray, almost black. I dismissed it as a trick of the dim, flourescent light of the restroom. But later, when I got into my car to drive home, I checked my teeth in the rear view mirror: definitely black. Then the mirror on my sun visor: black. At home, I stared long and hard into the mirror in my bright, sun-drenched bathroom: black. No getting around it. My lower front teeth had suddenly, mysteriously, turned black. And I thought, Aren’t black teeth a symptom of bubonic plaque? Which made me imagine the headline, Vigorously Healthy Man in Encinitas Suddenly Dead from Bubonic Plague! Everyone Should Now Go Crazy with Irrational Fear! Which made me laugh. Which made me decide to go for a long walk on the beach. Which allowed me to see a brilliant green flash at sunset, while listening on my iPod to Jack Johnson singing how my shadow walks faster than me, and staring skyward in awe as three great V-formation flocks of pelicans flew low overhead, gliding on the thermals alongside the high bluffs. I had no thoughts, no intentions, of leaving this wonder-filled world any time soon. When I got home, I brushed my teeth. And the black disappeared. Which made me remember that for lunch I had eaten a half-pint of delicious fresh tart blackberries. | |||