Godspeed, Bunky.

OK, so here we are. I'm so excited I'm not sure what I should do first. Well I mean after I write this blog.

I have to go to the dentist at noon to have a life-cast of my teeth made. I thought at first it was to be for a large statue in the middle of town honoring my contributions to Olympia. But reflecting, I could not identify any. So I think instead it's about a partial plate, known in the profession as a flipper, to replace a couple teeth lost in tragic genetic accident. At least, I assumed it was an accident, a caprice of nature, but now, looking back, I can clearly see the inculpatory brandings of the soviet state. Classic Russian tradecraft.

During the early 1950's, in an insidious effort to bankrupt the U.S., soviet moles sought out pregnant women in middle America and poisoned them with triburnial hexafeldimate. A tasteless, colorless southern Egyptian chemical that not only can't be detected but doesn't even exist and yet yields bizarre and unpredictable consequences to the poisonee.

My mother was the target and I was the sub-poisonee and in my case it caused my left lateral incisor to cease movement after it finished its development. Consequently, it sat there, quiescent, in my hard palate, like a tiny tooth-shaped time bomb, while the innocent little baby-tooth, whom I called Bunky, sat in its place on the gumline in cruel mockery. until I turned 50 years old. At that time, Bunky
fell out leaving a gap while the real canine remained in the hard palate, biding its time.

More years passed and then gradually, almost imperceptibly, the canine began to move a little until it wore through the membranes and caused multiple infections that eventually resulted in me having to pay mucho kablingy to have the tooth and surrounding corruption removed and replaced with Astroturf.

My enemies danced in the halls of Topango Canyon to see their foul scheme come to fruition and my month and budget was pushed into the mad realms of hither-tither chaos and amokery. Eventually my personal ship of state was able to right itself and the world returned to normal with the exception of the terrible gapiness along my upper left toothline.

Different types of memorials were suggested to mark the site where once stood the scrappy little baby tooth for 50 long years, guarding the realm. But eventually the committee decided that a simple partial, called a flipper, would best serve to remind the other teeth that their little cousin had not fallen from their midst in vain.

And so today, on the second day of the the year, the grounds will be measured for the creation of the "little flipper." I'm sure others will only be aware of the pomp and speeches that will undoubtedly be made, but I, I can only look back with a tear in my eye and remember the spunk and can-doo-ness shown by the little baby tooth all those years, Thankless? yes. But Bunky didn't do it for the glory. No, he stood his post as long as he could, longer than any other baby tooth in my history, just to keep faith with all the other teeth.

Godspeed, little Bunky!.

More later,

(In know the tooth in the illustration above is a molar while Bunky was a canine. It was just all I could find in a hurry.)