Toothpick. Don’t Leave Home Without One.

After spending Saturday evening at a family function, Fishman, Papaya, HoBiscuit and I were driving home when my tongue detected the intruder. I don’t know where it came from or how I missed it during the evening, but it suddenly became all too obvious as I sat there in the backseat of the car that I had a major problem. My mouth was under attack by an alien force and I had been caught unawares.

There was something stuck in my teeth.

This wasn’t your average piece of dinner tooth-spackle, either. In fact, I think it was such a spectacular piece of dental destruction that it deserves a name and henceforth, I shall call it ‘Fred’. Fred was an evil invader declaring war on my molars and waging psychological warfare on my mind. He was taunting me from a safe position between my teeth like videotape of Osama bin Laden laughing at Dubya from his cave in Afghanistan.

I don’t have any strong proof, but Fred might be connected to Al Quada.

Fred was one of those stringy, dangling things that are just long enough to rub against your tongue, but too short for you to easily grasp and remove. I sat there in consternation, trying in vain to remove Fred from the death grip he had on my molars, but to no avail. I tried using my fingernail to scrape him out, but my nail wasn’t long enough. I tried swishing spit through my teeth in an effort to wash him out, but the Fred was like a red wine stain on a white T-shirt and refused to come out. I tried to grasp his slippery body in my fingers and pull him loose and I even tried sucking on my own teeth as if I were the high-school whore after a long summer break, but the little bastard wouldn’t let go.

At this point, I would have sold my mother into slavery for a toothpick.

It wasn’t too long before HoBiscuit became aware of my discomfort and asked me what was wrong. When I told her, she laughed at me and said I should leave it alone for now and floss when we got home. I don’t think she grasped the severity of the situation. She didn’t understand that this unwanted molar intruder and I were locked in a battle to the death. A battle that would only end when I had forcibly pried Fred loose from my mouth, thrown his slimy, bloated, spit-covered body to the ground and stomped on him like a frightened three-year-old on a cockroach.

I would even point and scream hysterically.

HoBiscuit took pity on me and offered up the only thing she had handy that might have been some help to me, an old business card. I took this meager offering from my loving woman as if it were my last hope. I figured that a card has edges and I’d be able to win the war raging in my mouth if I could just pry Fred loose from his enamel bunker cavity of safety. Choosing the sharpest edge of the card, I located Fred with my tongue and launched my personal Cruise Missile of Dental Salvation. I was dead-on accurate and shoved that card deep into the recesses of my teeth. I was so close that I saw golden lights and heard harps and a choir.

And then the corner of the card tore off and got stuck in there with Fred.

For the rest of the trip home I had food and paper stuck between my teeth and there was nothing I could do. Fred and his new friend mocked my discomfort and HoBiscuit laughed at my stupidity. She never said it, but I just know she was thinking, “I told you so.” the whole way home.

Damn you Fred. Damn you to hell.