p13, v17.13 — Opinion — Mountain Views News

Opinion

Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, April 1, 2023

MVNews this week: Page 13

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 1, 2023

RICH JOHNSON

NOW THAT’S
RICH

DINAH CHONG WATKINS

STUART TOLCHIN

MOUNTAIN
VIEWS

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Dinah Chong Watkins

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Rich Johnson

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Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

PUT THE LIGHTS ON

KNOWING
YOURSELF

OPEN WIDE

Tiny beads of sweat formed
on his upper lip like a moist
mustache. With the harsh
glare of the operating light
behind his shoulder, he
squinted through his Coke
bottle glasses as I opened
my jaw. I spied his graduation of dentistry certificate
on the wall, it was dated two months ago,
my lips started to close in an unconscious act of
self-preservation.

“Open wide” he said, his hand trembled as he
brought the stainless steel hypodermic with the
12 inch needle closer to my 8 year old quivering
mouth.

The rest of the story is too gory to tell, let’s just
say everyone was left crying in the end. Myself
from pain, his from relief, and my mother when
she saw the bill.

Going to see the dentist is as enticing as a root canal,
worse - they want see you every six months.
At the physician's office, if you need a shot, you
can get it in the bum and not see it coming. At
the dentist that needle creeps closer to your face,
like a car wreck you can’t look away from. And
the sound of the drill! No amount of Red Bull can
match that neck-twitching whine for keeping you
in the here and now.

The 1976 movie Marathon Man with Dustin
Hoffman got it right. It has a vivid torture scene
involving Hoffman and a Nazi dentist, shot in a
dirty dank room with 1800’s era tools. Visits to
the dentists fell dramatically after the premiere
and only bounced back in the 80's with the craze
of tooth whiteners. The cutting-edge technology
involved ultraviolet beams and a dental tray
modeled on Geordi's visor from Star Trek:TNG.

The procedure was done in dental offices but
the demand was so great that dedicated kiosks
started popping up in malls where you could get
your teeth whitened and bystanders could watch
the BEFORE and AFTER, becoming a highlight
of the public’s entertainment - this was before
ABC's The Bachelor aired, when as the Rose
knows, white teeth really matters.

When China opened up to foreign enterprise exchanges
in the 80’s, multinational corporations,
manufacturers and entrepreneurs rushed in,
all eyes were glued to the jackpot of 1.3 billion
consumers.

One such enterprising fellow was a Canadian
dentist Dr. Morton. He created a cheap, high
output, moldable set of dentures. He arrived in
Beijing and set up a meeting with a group of distinguished
dental professors from Peking University
- the Harvard of the East. His only request
was the professors provide him with 5 subjects to
demonstrate his dentures on. The first 4 subjects
readily took to the moldable dentures but the
last, a peasant farmer from the rural province of
Hubei, never saw a bristle of a toothbrush in his
life. Not only that, his mouth was cavernous, the
premade denture was too small for “Jaws”. Once
again the Marxist ideology of peasants conquering
the educated class won out and Dr. Morton
was turned away and returned, empty handed
to the frosty hinterlands of Canada. Years later,
an exact copy of Dr. Morton's moldable dentures
popped up on Taobao.com - the amazon.com of
the East.

As we were leaving the dentist’s office that day,
my cheeks numb from the local anesthesia, the
dentist handed me a lollipop for being as good a
patient as an 8 year old could be. I unwrapped
the candy and put it in my mouth, drool flowing
down the stick as I couldn’t purse my lips together.
I asked him, “Is it sugar-free?” He smiled, gave
me another and said, “Here’s one for the road.”

Dinah Chong Watkins column appears every 1st
and 3rd Saturday of the month.

JOHN CLEESE

EUROPEAN SECURITY
THREAT LEVELS

John Cleese, Monty Python
Alumni, is a very clever fellow.

This cornucopia of comedy
magic by John is one of my favorites. I would prefer to refer
to him as “Sir John” but he turned down the Queens
offer of knighthood.

As you may know, my intent in writing my column is
to equip you, the reader, with information you can use
to “lighten the load” of friends at dinner parties, bank
openings, hospital waiting rooms, etc. Humor doeth
soothe the savage beast. And we all know many savage
beasts who need soothing.

So here we go. And thank you (Sir) John!

“The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent
events in Syria and have therefore raised their security
level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security
levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit
Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the
blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists
have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody
Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody
Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened
by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off"
to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels.
This is the reason they have been used on the front
line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has
raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The
only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and
"Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire
that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively
paralyzing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly
and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two
more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations"
and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful
Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing
Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade
a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual;
the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling
out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines
ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have
glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really
good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from
"No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation
levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel
the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled."
So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final
escalation level.”

Thank you so much Sir John! (I decided to Knight him
myself!)

Have a wonderful week good friends. I appreciate you!

My whole life I’ve followed
a similar pattern.
I’m forever losing things.
I get distracted. People
who read my articles have
told me that they are annoyed
when I jump from
one subject to another and
then try to fight my way back to the beginning.
Interpersonally I can be difficult as I have been
told that I am insensitive to other people’s feelings.
A sad example of this behavior is when I
said to a good friend’s wife, “You used to be so
beautiful”. Really I meant it is a compliment.
She took it as an insult and I have been unwelcome
at their house ever since.

I later described the incident to my wife
and she was amazed by my insensitivity. Didn’t
I know that no woman, especially a woman in
her late forties or even older, wants to hear that
she “used” to be so beautiful. I still don’t get it
but I never “used” to be beautiful. Maybe that’s
not a good example but I am just not aware of
what other people might describe as antisocial
behavior. In restaurants I love talking to
the strangers at the next table or asking servers
about their tattoos. I now realize this frequently
annoys the people I’m with who are not
interested in learning about other people even
though they have no desire to divulge much information
about themselves.

I have been told by people that I am
close to, like my wife and daughter, that they
do not share details with me because, according
to them I have “no boundaries” and may
say anything to anyone. I do admit I have trouble
keeping things inside. Frequently I experience
a general discontent and blame this on
the political situation or class inequality.
I sometimes feel guilty living the semi-privileged
life that I do. I am a home owning retiree
with a secure fixed income and no particular
responsibilities. I have lots of time to do things
but I basically don’t do anything but write these
weekly articles which the editor/publisher of
the newspaper recently reminded me consistently
exceed their word limit. This irritated
me but at the same time I realized how fortunate
I am to have the opportunity to have these
articles published. The reminder also had the
effect of actually making me notice how great
these retiree years have been without having a
boss telling me what to do or worrying about
clients not paying their bills.

Oops, I have already reached my word
limit and have not surprisingly completely deviated
from my point. What I have recently
learned is that my life-experience is typical of
people who can be categorized as exhibiting
the symptoms of Borderline Personality Syndrome
(BPS). This a condition often involving
feelings of worthlessness, instability, and
impulsivity, and a fluctuation of feelings. For
me, at least and for the time being, this discovery
was a relief. I might not be diagnosed as a
persons with BPS but reading about it gave me
some understanding. Perhaps you share similar
feelings or other feelings that you don’t want
the world to know about.

Okay, go ahead and keep your secrets
but I think it is best to understand that you
cannot keep your secrets from yourself. I think
there is great relief in learning about ourselves
and recognizing our own patterns.

The result should be that we will have a greater
tolerance and control of our own experience
and probably of our own behavior.

So do your best and I hope this article will be
of help and that’s no secret.

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