"You Can't Handle the Tooth!"

 

The topic here at the end of January is Stuff You Never See. Sunday we talked about Co-ed Dorm spouses. Today’s topic: Male Dental Hygienists. Anybody ever seen one? I have not. Do they exist? We were talking about it recently, and one guy reasoned that men’s hands are too big, that they wouldn’t fit in someone’s mouth. Wait. What? Have you ever had a dental hygienist actually put her hand inside your mouth? And did she eventually become a lion tamer? (And why don’t we see female lion tamers?)

We know people who are, well, they call themselves “birders”. Yeah, they sit out in parks with their binoculars and their high powered telescopes and their special outfits. Looking for birds. And hey, that’s fine. But wouldn’t looking for and finding a male dental hygienist be a little more interesting? You could actually talk to him. Ask him where he’s from, why he picked this profession, what’s his favorite tooth, what’s the dirtiest set of teeth he ever had to clean, that kind of stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to find this guy.  

Co-ed Life

My friend is sending his daughter off to college in the fall and he and I were reminiscing about dorm life. I don’t think I ever lived in a co-ed dorm. Maybe we were co-ed every other floor one year– I don’t remember. The crazy thing, looking back, is that I don’t know ANYBODY who met their spouse in a co-ed dorm. I bet you don’t either. We know of one guy who went off to college only to find out his roommate was a girl. There was a mix-up, to say the least. I think they got that straightened out the first day. But no, those two did not marry.

Not everybody’s gotta have a "co-ed to live by" I guess...

Baby it's Cold Inside

 

Before Christmas I kept hearing commercials on the radio for an HVAC contractor who was giving away a free furnace to a needy family. Great idea! Apparently, anybody can submit the name of a needy candidate family. Three finalists were selected and then a winner was selected from the finalists. That’s nice for the winner, but I must be missing something. And I can’t be the only one. How do you get three families’ hopes up and then disappoint two of the families? Is this like the Baseball Hall of Fame where, if you don’t get voted in, you’re on the ballot again next year? There was no mention of runner up prizes. Hopefully the second and third place families get a space heater or some wood or something...

Hopefully this was just a poorly worded commercial and they forgot to mention the consolation prizes.

The whole process left me cold.

Roundabout Way

 

Roundabouts are popping up all over, aren’t they? I think, in general, people are not fond of them. One person around here has had enough of them apparently. There are two new sets of frozen tire tracks right through the middle of a roundabout near us. Admittedly, the driver maybe did not see the roundabout and drove right through it, but I doubt if that’s going to happen twice. I think it’s somebody who’s saying “enough is enough, I’ve had it with roundabouts, I’m going through the middle. I’m not doing roundabouts in 2025”.

When somebody drives through a roundabout and comes out the other side, who has the right of way? Does he or she have the right of way or do those drivers already in the circle have the right of way? Sounds like a good question for the sheriff at Rotary Friday!

There's no Business like Snow Business

We’ve been getting some snow showers this week – enough to mess up the roads a bit. I was on the freeway this morning and got stuck behind a slow moving truck. He was in the right hand lane but there was some snow on the edge of the road so he was encroaching into the passing lane, thus preventing me from passing him. There was one of those “How’s My Driving” signs with a phone number on the back of his truck, so, since I couldn’t pass him, I took the time to call the number. Well it turns out that those numbers are not the truck driver’s phone number. So instead of asking the truck driver to move a little to the right, I ended up on phone with some guy at a phone bank in Calcutta. Who knew?

 

The Big Picture

 

I attended a Christmas party last month and my picture ended up in society page of the paper. I was with two friends in the picture and they looked great. Unfortunately I looked heavy. They say the camera adds, what, 20 pounds? Or, is that just on television? How do I get on television to find out? It was hard enough just to get in the paper…

Why would the camera add weight to me but not to my friends?  Should I stand farther back next time? If the camera adds weight, and if there’s nothing we can do about that, is it asking too much to ask someone to invent a camera that also adds height?  

I don’t want to blow this up to the point where the picture doesn’t fit in the frame I bought…