Wisdom Teeth

When I was 19 I had to have a surgery to remove my wisdom teeth. I set up my appointment and pulled enough cash out of the bank to pay for it, hoping that I wouldn’t get mugged. My mother took me down to the surgeon’s office. They hooked me up to something through an IV and gave me gas as well. I remember the gas mask coming down and my mind was totally clear then I began to hear what sounded like cicadas and then I saw black for what felt like about 2 seconds. After the short blackness the nurse told me to stand up when I felt that I could. I immediately thought I could but didn’t try. I was very dizzy. I thought, “But they haven’t even taken my teeth out.” As I did get up and walk down the hall I felt like I was crooked and I knocked some pictures on the wall sideways. My mother took me outside and I leaned on a sign in front of the office with my arms crossed and my chin on my arms. I remember having a stupid smile on my face at that point then I stumbled into the car. Once in the car I passed out. When I came to, I was sitting at a Sonic Drive In with my mother and she was asking me something. I answered yes to her even though I was not clear on the question. After saying yes I magically had a strawberry float in my hands which I remember tasting like coins and cotton. Then I barely remember walking into the house and plopping on the couch. I fell asleep there wondering why they hadn’t operated on me.

After some time, I am not sure how much, I woke up without the haze and found my cheeks stuffed with bloody gauze pads. I threw them away and checked out the stitches in my mouth. I was blown away that the 2 seconds I couldn’t see anything was enough time for an operation. I had a burger for dinner that night and healed up pretty quickly without swelling.

When I saw this video it took me back to the haze for a second.


Oh, Now the Truth Comes Out

One fine Saturday I was out with some friends hitting up shoe stores. I needed some new kicks for hooping it up with the youngsters. We wandered into one store where they must have been offering big bonuses for sales because we got swarmed by employees. It felt like being accosted by a mob of referees. I was wearing some old leather slip-on shoes. They were nice and scuffed; just the way I like them. I have a long standing dislike for shoe polish and I just like the way leather shoes look when they get old and worn out, so sue me.

One of the salesmen was pushing some special shoe polish. He went on about how you can put it on once and it would last for months. He explained that he used it himself and it made it so that he hardly ever had to polish his shoes. I didn’t really pay too much attention to his sales pitch as I was actually looking at basketball shoes. As I tried on shoes and such, this guy decided to do a demonstration. He quickly rubbed a streak across my shoe and then proudly declared, “Look at the difference. And you’ll hardly have to use much at all.” He looked up at me and found me glaring daggers at him as I said, “I like my shoes scratched up.” He hastily gathered his bottle and cloth, and as he stood up he said, “Oh, it’ll come right off. Don’t worry about that.” Luckily he was not telling the truth as he was pitching his product to us and it did come right off within a couple of days.


Groundhog Day

Well Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his hole after a long night of rioting to celebrate a Steelers Victory in the Super Bowl and despite his blurred vision and killer headache, he saw his shadow, which means there will be six more weeks of winter.

When I was a kid I used to think they actually watched a groundhog come out of his hole and watched to see if he went back inside because he saw his shadow or if he stayed outside because he saw no shadow and the weather would be nice. My teachers at school led me to believe that there was some natural phenomenon that animals could sense future weather. When I watched the movie Groundhog Day it blew my whole reality apart. Some dufus pulls out the groundhog and talks to him. That hardly seems like the groundhog is actually predicting the weather. I did a little research and found out that, out of the last 110 or so years the groundhog has seen his shadow 97 times. A longer winter is good for many of the ski resorts in Pennsylvania and so of course the people there want to hear they are going to have a longer winter. I think the fix is in. I am going to get my own groundhog and every year on February 2nd I will set up a camera outside of the hole to see if it goes back inside. This will give me a better forecast for my local area and help avoid the corruption that is going on in Punxsutawney PA. It will also be great that I won’t have to watch the goofy weather people on all the local stations. After six weeks I will record if the prediction was correct.

P.S. Groundhog Day is one of the all time best movies.