Our Annoying World

MY GRADE:

The last time I went to the dentist she cleaned my teeth, and then with a disappointed and horrified look on her face handed me this tool…

She said “You need to use this every day.”

My first thought was “I’m glad she’s not my proctologist.”

She further explained “It’s a gum massager. You need to massage your gums twice a day. Everyone should.”

I replied “To be honest, I’m brushing three times a day. I’m flossing. I’m not sure how much more dental-related activities I can fit into my daily schedule.”

She nodded, thought for a moment, and came up with this great idea: “Keep the gum massager in your car and massage your gums as you drive.”

That conjured two images for me. One was my high school driving instructor strangling my dentist with five feet of dental floss. The second was a 15 car pile-up on the 405 freeway with me in the middle of it, and a gum massager lodged two-thirds of the way down my esophagus.

Later on that day, as the police officer was writing me a traffic ticket for gum massaging without a hands-free device, I realized it wasn’t my dentist’s fault. She’s a dentist.  I’m sure she massages her gums 5 times a day. Matter of fact, she probably takes them out for a girl’s day at the spa: massage, hot stone treatment, a jacuzzi, then a pedicure. *

(* Note to readers: I know. That made no sense.)

And that’s how all professionals, specialist and experts spend their days: telling their customers and patients what we all need to be doing and how we’re failing to do it. The plumber thinks the only thing we should think about all day is proper pipe maintenance. Your barber thinks you should be giving your hair special hot oil treatments 6 times a week. Your mechanic wonders why you don’t bring your car in for a tune-up every 13 miles.

But I never remember any of this stuff.  So as a result of my neglect, my gums are tense, my hair isn’t sufficiently hot and oily, and my pipes feel angry and betrayed.  So I decided to shape up once and for all, and GET THINGS DONE.  I made a list to remind me of everything.  You can use it too!  Here goes:

TO DO*

(* note: if you have a child, take this list and double it)

Brush your teeth. Floss. Massage your gums (either in car or sans car) Exercise 4-5 times a week, 40 minutes a day. Look for unusual moles and growths on your body. Check yourself for testicular cancer once a week (optional for women) Check all your car’s fluids. Run a test check of your sprinklers every week: look for clogs, leaks, drippage. Speaking of water, drink 83 glasses of it each day. Check dogs weekly for bumps, cuts, missing patches of hair.  Give them their flea and tick medication once a month. Heartworm meds once a month.Express  their anal gland  monthly.  Check their poop for worms. Change your guitar strings every three months.  Run a firewall on all your computers. And anti-virus programs. Update your computer software weekly. Clean your cache (the computer equivalent of expressing your dog’s anal gland, I guess?) Compress your hard disk. But don’t compress your lower back. Sit up straight. Repair disk permissions (wha? huh?). Pay your bills. Check your balance. Your bank balance.  Not your body balance.  But don’t fall over.  You’ll skin your knee.  Keep all receipts for tax purposes, track all mileage, make quarterly payments, put money in the bank, but not too much, put it in the stock market, whoops — your money is gone, put your remaining $3 in CDs instead. Change your air filters. Change your toothbrush. Change your smoke detector batteries. Test the carbon monoxide detector. Get your sewer scoped once a year. Get your chimney reamed once a year. If you’re over 45, do the same for your anus. Get a checkup. Pee in this cup. Prepare an earthquake kit.  Lather.  Rinse. Repeat Check for termites. defrost your freezer. Rotate your tires. Rotate your mattress. Clean the lint trap. Trim your trees. Join a book club. Read the newspaper every day. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Watch Mad Men, ‘cuz I hear it’s really good. Listen to Public radio. Support live theater. Support the troops. Only buy free range chicken. And free range coffee. Vote. No, American Idol doesn’t count. Read food labels. Eat according to the food pyramid. Fat is okay but not too much trans fat. Find out what trans fat is. Buy local. Buy organic. Wait, what about your dog’s teeth??? Brush them daily! My dog too? Geez! Yes, smart-ass, your dog too! And check them for testicular cancer. Wait — they’re neutered. Scratch that. Well, not scratch scratch, you know what I — Never mind. Oh, and a yearly eye exam. Not your dog, you, dummy! Wait, did I check the fluids? Mine or the car’s?! I can’t remember!!! Has everyone’s anus been covered???

See? That’s not so daunting. And look, I still have 13 seconds left this month to finish my blog entry (he writes while simultaneously massaging his dog’s gums)

Did I miss anything?  Let me know…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 4:15 am and is filed under I'm just sayin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.