Sisyphus and the Cashew: A Tragic Dental Epic

Is there anything more satisfying than dislodging something with your tongue that’s been stuck between your teeth? Maybe winning a scratch-off is in the same league, but only if it’s more than a hundred bucks—maybe even a grand. Because in the realm of personal Olympics, nothing feels finer than taking home the gold medal in this ridiculous sport.

I recently had a filling fall out, which opened the real estate market in the back of my jaw. Where there was once porcelain, or silver, or whatever the hell was back there, is now gone, and in its place is a "For Rent" sign. Since it’s low-income real estate, there are no takers, so, similar to an abandoned house in the bad part of town, it’s at the mercy of vandals—or, in this cockamamie example, a rogue cashew.

Any normal person would get the dental floss out, cinch it around their fingers—cutting off the blood supply north of the cuticle—while awkwardly contorting their hands in a vain attempt to be their own dentist. But not I! For I am having the time of my life, borrowing a thing or two from the Japanese art of origami—except I’m folding my tongue in an all-night effort to evict said cashew.

I’ve tried every way from Sunday, but nothing is working, and I’ve been at it for two hours. My poor tongue looks like a Chinese dragon, contorted all to hell, and it’s getting a bit raw from burrowing into my gums like a miner in the caves of West Virginia. But I’m not giving up. As I said earlier, this is my personal version of the Olympics. I’ll die on this mountain if need be.

Sometimes I think about the weird stuff humans do on a daily basis, and since there are eight billion of us, it stands to reason that an ENORMOUS amount of time is spent (not wasted, mind you) on the most curious of things.

For some, like me, it’s choosing to forgo dental floss for an evening of whatever the hell it is I’m doing. For others, it’s teasing out the perfect sneeze… you know what I’m talking about… when you’re searching for the light, looking like a complete idiot with your nose in the air, eyelids flickering, taking quick breaths, believing in your heart that if the stars align, you just may have a euphoric explosion burst forth from your nostrils, and, inevitably, scare the ever-living shit out of everyone within earshot.

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve kept going for the gold. My poor tongue is begging to ride the bench, but I won’t acquiesce to its demands. No one has ever accomplished anything worthwhile without hard work and sacrifice, so I told my tongue to man up—to see this through—that I won’t tolerate quitters.

So, I’ll keep fighting the good fight. I don’t care if I lose my taste buds. I don’t care if I wear the enamel off my teeth. Come hell or high water, I will triumph. And when I do, when that glorious moment arrives, when my "Miracle on Ice" materializes near my molars, I'll see about teasing out a sneeze.

*Composed, Edited, and Published in Austin, TX