Honolulu Lite
We had sort of a landmark day in our household last week. A total of five teeth were pulled from the heads of household members in one 24-hour period. Putting teeth into
the record bookMy daughter had two teeth pulled and our dog Boomer had three yanked. Different doctors were involved. You can't take your children and pets to the same dentist yet, although, when you get right down to it, pulling teeth is pulling teeth.
Five teeth pulled in one day. An all-time family record. Right up there with the time I fell down twice in one day, after a several year stretch of remaining vertical. The second time I fell, I remember thinking as I was falling, "I can't believe it. I'm falling down. Again." Wham. Flat on my back, thanks to a little red rubber ball that my daughter had thoughtfully placed in the regular path between bedroom and kitchen.
On the teeth front, we didn't know we were going for a record. We knew that my daughter had to have two baby teeth pulled to make way for two permanent teeth, which had grown impatient and contrived to poke out in a part of the gums where teeth aren't supposed to be. Dentists have a word for this: Porsche. As in, "By the time we are done coaxing those two teeth into their correct positions, I'll have my Porsche paid for."
But Boomer was only scheduled to have one tooth pulled, one way in the back that he had secretly broken while pulverizing a steak bone and didn't tell us about. How we found out about it is one of those strange chain-of-coincidences stories. I was walking him around the neighborhood one day when he stepped on a bee. Being a big wussy, he lay on the sidewalk and refused to move. We were a mile-and-a-half from our house and I wasn't about to lug him all the way home. I was considering what it would be like without a dog in the family when a fellow dog owner noticed Boomer in distress. He kindly drove us home, so Boomer was lucky there.
I took Boomer to the vet, who confirmed he had probably stepped on a bee but he'd live. But he'd live without one of his teeth, because during the examination, the cracked tooth was discovered.
So a few days later, he was knocked out with sleeping drugs (Boomer, not the vet) and it was discovered that two other teeth were damaged and had to come out.
Now Boomer lies in the corner, running his tongue over his gums, trying to figure things out. "Let's see. I went for a walk. I peed on a lot of trees. My foot hurt. And now I'm missing three teeth. How does that work?"
The vet said not to feed Boomer any more bones, which seems kind of harsh. Dogs and bones go together like cats and hair balls. The lady at the animal hospital also said to brush Boomer's teeth every day. I'm not sure what world that is where humans brush dogs' teeth every day. But it isn't the world I live in. I have a hard and fast rule: Never brush the teeth of an animal that doesn't have thumbs.
Boomer will just have to get by knowing that he made a valuable contribution to the family record book.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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