Much Ado about NOTHING

Today was dental hygiene day. While confined to a high-tech dentist's chair as the hygeniest roto-routered my mouth, I tried to decide where to rest my gaze. I didn't want to close my eyes because, based on past experience, that would cause her to ask "Are you okay?" every 30 seconds, apparently out of concern that I had fainted. And then I would have to mumble "uh huh" over and over while she pick-axed my teeth.

I didn't want to look into her eyes, which would be rude, or stare at her neck, which would be weird. So I looked, as I usually end up doing, at a large oil painting on my dentist's wall. It depicts white, puffy clouds against a cerulean sky and a single soaring seagull.

There's something ironic about forcing patients who can't move, who have fingers and power scrubbers in their mouths, to stare at a scene that calls to mind the phrase "free as a bird." Seagulls don't have teeth. They don't have to endure oral torture and then pay for it. They can fly. I wish I could fly.

I had plenty of time to think about what it would be like to be a seagull as I sat immobilized in that chair. I finally decided I wouldn't like it. I'd rather have aching gums than make detestably annoying "k'kaw" noises while I fight over garbage at the beach.