The Word Show

Let’s get right to it: I am 30 years old and still go to a pediatric dentist. I have it on good authority that I am Dr. Charles Dixter’s (a.k.a. Chuck D) oldest patient by a good 10 years. Actually, there are a handful of older patients, but their reason for seeing Chuck is that their own kids have started to go as well – so they have convenient alibis, and it isn’t quite the same thing.

I know it’s a little odd. But aside from enduring the ridicule of my friends and family (even my mom jokes about it with her own dentist. Thanks, Mom.), why should it really bother me? The way I see it, there’s nothing better about going to a DFG (Dentist For Grown-ups).

Let’s review: Dr. Dixter’s office has mint AND bubble-gum flavoured fluoride, comic books in the waiting room, dental hygenists who are continually impressed that I’m out of school, living on my own, and holding down a job (what‘s 13 -year-old Zachary accomplished lately? Thought so.), and, best of all, when I strap into the chair and lie back, rather than stare at a depressingly barren ceiling, devoid of any visuals, Chuck D’s ceiling is plastered with photos of kittens and puppies being all cute and playful. That’s about as soothing an image as you can have while the good Doctor D works away on your choppers. I’m not even going to talk about the rad plastic ring I still get at the end of every appointment, because it’ll just sound like bragging.

On the other hand, I have never been to a DFG, so I can’t say with certainty that doing so would be, necessarily, a horrific experience. But I have seen the film Marathon Man. That’s the one where Dustin Hoffman’s character ends up being interrogated and tortured by a sadistic German Nazi dentist – not a pediatric dentist, but a dyed-in-the-wool DFG.

Now, I realize it’s potentially unfair to paint all DFG’s as sadistic Nazis, as I’m sure there are some good ones out there (dentists, not Nazis), but why take the risk? Why bother going out for vinegar-flavoured fluoride or whatever slop the DFG‘s are serving, when you’re already living it up and getting the bubblegum flavor at Chuck D‘s?

For what it’s worth, I did ask Dr. Dixter, at the conclusion of my last visit, if he found it odd or at all disconcerting that I was still his patient, after all these years. Chuck just smiled, passed me a plastic ring that featured a picture of a gopher (it read “I go-pher brushing!“), and assured me that I was still more than welcomed through his hallowed halls, so long as I, quote, “promised to keep up with the flossing.” I sure will, Chuck D, I sure will.

Without too much hassle, I could switch from commuting to work by car to doing so via public transit, and it would tack on maybe 15 extra minutes to my journey. For sure,  it would be the virtuous and environmentally responsible thing to do: ditch the car, decrease my Shaq-sized carbon footprint; be more ‘green.’

But every extra minute in  the morning is, for me, a precious commodity – and the 15 extra minutes that driving to work affords me is like winning the lottery – albeit a very lame lottery. Still, it’s nice to be a winner.

Actually, the main reason I like driving into work is I get to catch a few minutes of  National Public Radio. I don’t know anyone else my age who listens to NPR, the typical listener being a 50+ year-old Liberal Vermonter, who grows his own vegetables, has an equal distrust of Big Government and Big Business, and is more interested in L.L. Bean  than L.L. Cool J.

But I like NPR a lot. I like that their news reporting is intelligent and relatively objective, and that commentator Garrison Keillor has the most soothing voice this side of Barry White – but instead of a disco crooner’s sexy-talk, Keillor waxes about quaint topics like basket weaving and Minnesota winters. So he’s not Barry White, then, although rumour has it Mr. Keillor actually pulls a lot of tail in his day.

The NPR radio signal floats in from Burlington, Vermont, and by the time it gets to Montreal, it‘s pretty weak, but my trusty Subaru’s radio does an admirable job of picking up it up. This would normally be an opportunity to write something about the superiority of Japanese radios, but I don’t want to sound racist – it wouldn’t be becoming of an NPR listener.

But at least once a day, as I slowly progress through the morning gridlock, often right in the middle of Garrison The Lady-Killer Keillor’s random musing about the beauty of ice fishing or Flemish poetry, my zen state is violently thrown out of whack by a passing car’s intercepting radio. That’s right, I get iPoached.

It’s a term I’ve coined for the phenomenon that occurs when a nearby car, with an iPod playing via an FM transmitter, poaches – nay – HIJACKS the radio signal in my car, and it normally sounds like this:

Cue Garrison Keillor‘s velvet delivery: “Today in poetry history, T.S. Eliot, author of notable works such as The Wasteland, was born in Oshkosh, WisconPSHSHSHH #@$#@%$#@$%$#@“WITH THA GANGSTA SHIT THAT KEEPS YA HANGIN  – HOW MANY HO’S IN ‘94 WILL I BE BANGIN?!!!”

Yup, Garrison’s butter-smooth voice gets cut out by hip-hop’s Original Gangsta, Snoop Dog, playing on a passing car‘s iPod. It only lasts a few seconds, but it’s enough to destroy my meditative session. Indeed, the solitary morning car commute, once viewed as the sole remaining fortress of solitude for the urban worker bee, has been compromised.

That said, the interruption gives me some food for thought, as I’ve wondered how many “ho’s” Garrison Keillor, with his ability to quote random poetry and recount enchanting stories about small-town America,  has managed to “bang.” What’s more, how long before Snoop D-O-to-the-Gizzle makes it over to NPR? Don’t laugh. He’s already got a smooth, public radio-friendly voice of his own, he’s got serious charisma, and, perhaps most importantly, like most NPR listeners, he’s an avid horticulturalist. I say we get that thug headset, a mug, and a comfy wool sweater.

A new relationship is an exciting thing. There’s the initial thrill of meeting someone you like and, if it goes well and she likes you back, then maybe there’s a 2nd date, which soon begets the 3rd and 4th date and, pretty soon, if you haven’t made a mess of things up until that point, you are in a full-blown relationship.

Or are you? How do you know? When is a relationship sealed and made official? Certainly not after the first sleepover – the prevalence of casual sex in our culture has taken care of that. And though many people have their own, personal criteria for measuring such things, there has never been a set, universally agreed-upon marker to demarcate when a relationship has begun.

Well, that’s not exactly right. There’s always been that one milestone, but it was always too dirty – too grizzly – an event to be the socially acceptable measure. Indeed, the passing – and that verb is very appropriate – of this milestone says: “Let us walk, m’lady, from this day forth, arm in arm, through the desert, across the frozen tundra, and, if there is time, through the hanging gardens of Babylon, as a couple.” This milestone to which I refer is, of course, the first time you have a poo while she’s over.

That really is the first time you realize things are getting serious. Up until that point, avoiding a BM in front of the new girl is a necessary dance we must endure. Even after a night of hard drinking, where such a release would be sweet relief in your hungover, bloated state, you must grin and bear it, pretending that a liberating waste deposit is the last thing you would want. Nope, definitely don’t need to pinch a loaf – you’d much rather listen to some Miles on your vintage phonograph and maybe pour you and your sweetheart a mimosa. Uh-huh.

And when the day does come that you decide the charade must end, it starts off innocently enough: maybe it’s the morning after date #5, and maybe you suggest that, for a change, it being the 5th or so sleepover, perhaps in lieu of going out for brunch, you can just rustle up some of your famous scrambies, home-brewed coffee, and family recipe bran muffins. How cozy!

But then nature, invariably, runs its course, and you very quickly realize why young couples enjoy going out for brunch. Hint: it’s not because omelettes are difficult to cook -that only the best, most hirsute, grumpiest, most hungover short-order cook in all the land could be trusted to pour eggbeaters into a frying pan.

No, that is not why young couples enjoy brunch. They enjoy it because where there’s brunch, there is a public restroom. And where there’s a public lav, there’s a throne built expressly for that anonymous, noxious deposit.

But enough of that. You made your choice, hotshot. You’ve had your home-brewed coffee, your homemade bran and, perhaps, feeling all European and sophisticated, your cigarette. The damsel you are courting is suitably impressed. But now, it is very much “go” time; the digestive witching hour, and it’s time to make your bathroom smell like the aftermath of a Viking invasion – that is, if the Vikings had invaded Mexico and claimed the burrito as their own. It’s ok, though. Better she know early on what you’re capable of. Who knows? She may even be impressed.