The Fonz’s Dental Dilemma

Mrs. Greatsby and I have a different perspective on taking the kids to the dentist. When the kids saw the dentist last week and she insisted the boys needed thousands and thousands of dollars of dental and orthodontic work, my wife immediately scheduled follow-up appointments.

But when I see a dentist I see a person running a business, and when she recommends lots and lots of expensive work for the kids, I view these recommendations as an upsell from a salesman, like a doctor pushing vaccines. “Wait a second, you say my kids don’t have measles, but you want me to pay money for a shot to protect them from a disease they don’t even have? That sounds a lot like when the mafia asks for protection money in order to protect your business from the mafia.”

If the dentists recommends filling a cavity, I say sure, let’s fill a cavity if it’s causing discomfort, but why would we spend $2000 on a painful root canal for a seven-year-old on a non-permanent tooth that’s going to fall out in the next year? That’s madness.

If the tooth isn’t even hurting him, but the dentist says it might be a problem and cause discomfort when the next tooth comes in, I can’t help but question the logic of recommending a painful, expensive procedure today in order to avoid the chance of a painful, expensive procedure tomorrow. And holding off seems like even more of a no-brainer when I consider how squirmy the seven-year-old Fonz can be in the dentist’s chair. I’d much rather take my chances with the ten-year-old Fonz in the hope he’ll spend the next few years learning to be still.

Is anyone a dentist? Can you explain this to me? And don’t you think we’re about ten years away from Apple offering some sort of tooth replacement technology anyway? We’re going to kick ourselves for spending so much money fixing our teeth when Apple comes up with an iTooth that can conveniently sync our mouths to all our other devices.

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The worst of my back pain has subsided. I can rotate my head in most directions, but the one thing I can’t even come close to doing is holding my head upright or tilting my head to the left. My head seems to be permanently tilted to the right at a 45 degree angle and may give speakers the false impression that I’m extremely sympathetic to what they’re saying. This is certainly not the case because I’m listening even less while my thoughts are occupied by my neck discomfort.

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The Fonz has gotten a lot of attention for his funny lines so Optimist Prime has been searching for his own unique comedy angle. We think he’s finally found something that works as he’s made us laugh several times this week by giving compliments in a British accent as though he were a reality TV show judge and addresing us by our first names. “I really love your manicure. The color of the nail polish brings out the sparkle in your eyes. You’re going on to the next round.”

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Winter is almost over and we’re counting down the days until mosquito season starts. This week I enjoyed She’s a Maineiac’s tips for dealing with cabin fever:

Curing Cabin Fever

I especially appreciated her recommendation to try your hand at rewriting Twilight but with fewer vampires and more interesting words.

Here’s a picture from our Bali vacation that gives me hope of warmer days ahead:

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Only one day left to vote in the caption contest. The competition is fierce. Do your part to make one of the finalists’ caption contest dreams come true.