Two weeks ago I had a toothache.

I have a friend here named Karlo. Like Carlos without the s at the end. He is a dentist from Peru. I went to see him today.

He sat me down in the chair, opened my mouth and started looking, poking and prodding. All the while he made noises. "mmm" "huh" "hmmmm" "hmph" "umm" NONE of which were the least bit encouraging.

If I am paranoid about one thing, its my teeth. Some people worry about their weight. Others about their hair falling out. Still others about the people watching them behind tinted windows in unmarked cars. Like I said, I worry worry about my teeth. They always seem to be loose. Can anyone else wiggle their teeth back and forth? I chipped a front one the other week- WITHOUT even biting the pen. All I was doing was holding it with my lips. It took me two weeks to believe that the rest of it wasn't going to spontaniously fall to pieces. A front tooth at that. Who would marry someone without a front tooth? Then there was this aforementioned toothache. For two days I thought I was going to have to pull it myself. Then all of sudden all the pain left. So I talked to my good friend Karlo, who told me to drop by his clinic, and then starting grunting these really soothing noises. So I naturally assumed he was about to fit me for dentures.

"Oh no," I sighed once he withdrew his mirror. (That means "oh no" in English) "¿Que pasa?" (That means something like "what?")
"Oh nothing, everything looks fine," he replied. Not exactly what I was expecting, and relief started to spread through tensed muscles. Then he commenced to say that there was nothing to worry about, as long as I took perfect care of my teeth and I never ate anything hard again because there is a large hairline fracture (if its possible to have a large hairline fracture) running sideways across my front tooth. "It should be fine as long as you are careful, if not, well the bottom half of your front tooth could break off."

At this point I am down to only 2 and a half of my four front teeth. I still might have a bright future, just not such a bright smile. Shame really, I was hoping to at least keep my teeth longer than my hair. I'll stop that thought there though, in case I should get what I wish for.

Karlo finished up the visit telling me that everything is fine, nothing to worry about. Just be sure to put all solid food through a blender from now on if you want to keep that front tooth. As for the ex-toothache, well you have a filling that is pretty close to the nerve... Actually it's a humongous filling, I wonder why they even decided to keep the tooth. Anyways, don't worry about it hurting again in the future. But if it should happen to hurt, it shouldn't last ages.

So all was well after all on the tooth front. And I breathed a contented sigh of relief after I had chomped down on some nice supper earlier tonight. Stretched out on the couch I ran my tongue along the bottom of my other front tooth to find it a bit rough. Within ten seconds I was at a mirror, and sure enough, the third of my four front teeth now has a slight chip. At this point I was labeled paranoid by all involved, but I know deep inside that it's only a matter of time now. Maybe for my last meal I'll have a nice big steak with some hard broiled candy for dessert. After that I'll have a picture taken to remember my teeth by, and by then it will probably be time to leave for the denture fitting down at Karlo's clinic...