The Rooster Will Come Home To Roost.

“I stuck my head out the window and got arrested for mooning.” Rodney Dangerfield.

My dentist kept my teeth. I don’t know why. He has a perfectly good set of his own. He insisted on keeping them for two weeks. I have been enjoying having teeth and It’s not nice walking around without them. Little children go running to their mommies crying when they see me. I’d like to run to my mommy too, but she’s long gone and, frankly, probably wouldn’t have been terribly sympathetic. She told me this would happen if I insisted on ingesting so much sugar. Even now I see her in my dreams wagging a bony finger at me like the friggin ghost of Christmas past.

Anyway, sugar’s only been part of the problem. There was my good friend’s flying elbow during that long-ago basketball game which loosened a couple of chiclets. He’s a wealthy lawyer now with a winning smile and I’m walking around with no teeth. Then there was the mugging in the year 2000, January 14th, 6:30 at night to be precise. It was not my finest hour. By the way, this is not the first time my dentist has kept my teeth and, to be fair, he does give them back, usually in better condition. But I feel shy around other homo sapiens. Most seem to have such perfect white tusks.

In the meantime, and this is important, a medical procedure that has been pending was only just recently completed. And it has affected my overall appearance drastically. I look horrible which is wonderful, because i am no longer the least concerned about my missing teeth. I don’t care at all. My dentist can keep them for as long as he wants. He can use them if he needs to, show them to people at dinner parties. It really doesn’t matter. As well, and this is very important, I just heard a friend of mine died. Now I don’t care how I look at all at all.

The truth is that my face will return to normal, although obviously I use the word loosely, and I will get my teeth back. But, sooner or later, the rooster will come home to roost. I don’t actually know what that means, but I think you know what I mean by it. Nobody gets out of this intact. So I think about that every time a young and beautiful person patronizes me. I think about that every time I talk to someone old and decrepit. The truth is that I am the young and beautiful, the old and decrepit, both, all.  

“The truth is that on some level when you hurt, or when your children hurt, I hurt. We are all in this together.” Bernie Sanders.