No Smoting

AND ALIVE!








I love my oral surgeon!

When I write my great opus, I'm going to dedicate it to him.

When I climb Mt. Everest, I'm going to plant a flag with his picture on it.

When I am Queen, I'm going to have the Royal Horticulture Society name a rose after him.

When I'm President I'm going to make him my Oral Surgeon General.

This man, this wonderful man, took a scared, whimpering (emphasis on the "whimp"),
shaking, sad sack of a woman and in three seconds took away her headache and upset
stomach and turned her back into her happy, vivacious, glittery self.

It was like a biblical miracle in one of those Cecil B. DeMille movies, except Moses was
played by The Man and God was played by my oral surgeon. I played the part of a
quivering mass of raspberry jello.

I was doing an academy award winning job of quivering while Moses and God were
discussing whether or not to smote me. Whenever they uttered the word "smote,"
I moaned convincingly.

Anyway, Moses was saying that he thought the tooth was bothering me and that I
should be smoted real good. But, I meekly uttered, "No, the tooth doesn't really
bother me at all. I just thought I should come here and get smoted because my
regular dentist said I should."

Then God said, "Statistically speaking, you are a group that doesn't need smoting.
If you were under 40 I'd smote you right now, no question. But, once you're over
40 you don't need to be smoted unless there's a reason like pain or filthy, stinking decay.

My quivering began to cease.

Moses said, "But wait a minute, God. I mean, come on, she's here and the bib is
clipped on her and everything is in readiness. Why not just smote her and get it
over with. How long would it take?"

God said, "It'd take about twenty minutes. In fact, if we weren't having this discussion
she'd be good and smoted by now."

"But," he continued, "I don't see any reason to smote her right now. If it were Me,
I'd wait until it were necessary. Why get smoted if you don't have to?"

Moses said, "I vote for smoting."

I asked if it was going to make any difference if I got smoted when I'm really old, like
say 56. God said it wasn't going to make any difference at all because "a smote is a
smote is a smote, and in your case nothing is going to change. The tooth is just going
to sit there just like it is right now."

I smiled.

Just then the angel music started, a heavenly choir sang forth as the credits started
to roll.

I walked out unsmoted and free, free, free. For six months I've been anxiously
anticipating this day's smoting, but now...I suddenly felt giddy and the world
before me shimmered in a golden glow.

Moses trudged out behind me a little disappointed, but cheered up when I
suggested we go over to Bob Evan's to celebrate my ability to eat smote-free
food, which is where I ate a breakfast burrito that I wouldn't have been able
to eat had I been smoted as planned.