Flounderlust

Say Cheese!

Now a new thing to fear: Dental x-rays. And me with a check-up on Monday. Every few check-ups the hygienist says it’s time for a new set of pictures. She covers me in the lead blanket that feels at once suffocating and reassuring. She twists the glossy cardboard squares of film into the various configurations and jams them into my mouth along with that device with the plastic ring at which she points the camera.

Is it a camera? Not really, it’s a gun that shoots x-rays. And when it does, she steps out of the room to avoid the hazard she’s exposing me to.

When I was a kid I remember our housekeeper watching her soaps and one had a plot involving a man with a brain tumor. I asked her what that meant and she explained it in enough gory detail to give me some pretty significant nightmares.

Something else to smile about.