Much Ado about NOTHING

Good news! I don't need a root canal after all.

This morning, I visited a dental specialist who evaluated my current oral botheration: occasional pain when masticating some morsel or sipping some libation that is either intensely frigid or piping hot. First I had to be tortured a little, however. It started with a bit of weirdness, when the hygienist who escorted me to the recliner of pain insisted that I use some hand sanitizer. I don't quite fathom the connection between antiseptic hands and super-sensitive teeth, but I humored her. Then Dr. Paroxysm came in and started "testing" my teeth, first by sticking a tiny poker into a flame (seriously) and then against some of my molars. Owww! Then he pressed what felt like an ice cube from Pluto against the same denticles. Ahhh! The pains faded fast, however, so he concluded that my roots are actually sound, no canals need to be excavated, and the sensitivity is just a...mystery. Relief! And this little interlude of torment only cost me 200 bucks.

Later, at work, I had another conversation with Joey [trousers], the film and TV actor who wanders about the office between bouts of, uh, content creation, as we say. He wanted to know why we pull down the window shades on the panoramic vistas that are theoretically visible though the fenestration I face while seated at my workbench. I explained that I experience eyestrain when the afternoon sun sheds its dazzle. He then delivered some poetic utterances about the snow-covered hills visible through another window, which led to some reflections on the pleasures of skiing. He loves cold weather, he said.

Strange days indeed.