Lesions

Does anyone else ever grow weary of shaving your legs? Brushing your teeth? Washing your hair? Do not get me wrong, I don't want to go around blowing putrid breath on people. I don't want to have hairy man legs. I don't want greasy, unwashed hair. I'm not depressed or otherwise apathetic toward life in general. But sometimes, I stick that toothpaste on that brush and I think, "I just did this."

And I'm weird about my teeth because I live in perpetual anxiety that "today will be the day I get a cavity!" Being cavity free through 30 years of life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Truly. At my last dentist appointment I found out that I have not one but two incipient lesions. They were marked on my virtual tooth chart and I saw them, two darkened teeth, staring at me. I almost hyperventilated and burst into tears right then and there. But the dentist came in and told me my teeth looked great.

"WHAT ARE THOSE BLACK TEETH THEN? HMM? EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THE HECK THOSE THINGS ARE? AND ALSO WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 13?" I interrogated him, is what I'm saying.

The hygienist stepped in. "Oh those. Those are incipient lesions. Basically they're cavities but they don't need to be filled yet and as long as you keep brushing and flossing like you do, we won't need to do anything."

But she'd lost me at the basically they're cavities part.

So what? Now I'm only a filling free kid? Because I'd prided myself for 30 years on being a cavity free kid.  And I tell you what, the moment those incipient lesions turn into bonafide, raging, decaying cavities is the moment that dentist's office doesn't know what hit them. Because try as I might I am sure that I'm going to lose it. I'm going to dissolve into a puddle of tears as I bid goodbye to my filling free mouth. Guys, I am seriously weird about my teeth.

And terrified of Novocaine. Flat out, down right, terrified. And I got an epidural.

That's right. I had a needle plunged deep into my spine and barely blinked but the thought of one pricking my gums is the worst kind of Halloween horror I can imagine.

So there's the inevitable downward spiral my pride will take upon no longer having perfect teeth followed by the sheer and utter terror of needles being stuck into my mouth. And I'm living on borrowed time because the incipient lesions are actively living in my mouth! Living there...as if I invited them. Living there as if all those years of obsessive brushing didn't matter after all.

As I said before, it's not that I want to stop bathing or brushing my teeth--I mean, heck, my teeth time now involves even more obsessive brushing than it did before, even more furious flossing, and a more attentive Listerine rinse--it's just that I sometimes tire of the routine. It doesn't really matter anyway because, eventually, those incipient lesions are going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

But then I remember things like, oh, biblical times, for example, when people traipsed through the desert in bare feet and bathed only every so often. When meals consisted of lamb and onions and leeks and garlic and, occasionally, locusts and there is no mention anywhere of toothpaste.

Then I gladly hop up and do the teeth routine.