By Diva Dee

Ok. So I got this aching tooth, right?  I’m sure nothing’s wrong cuz I was just at the dentist 4 years ago.  What can go wrong in 4 years? So anyway, I am a sincere believer that one must give the body a chance to heal itself.  (Strengthens the immune system, ya know, and it’s a great excuse for a liquid sedative.)

After two days of still believing in the human fight zone, the third day was the worst and the pain had mutated to more of a dull, nagging inconvenience than anything else.  Well okay, yeah it hurts.  I was ready to knock someone’s lights out by the end of work today.

So on the commute home (an idle mind is a very creative thing), I said to myself, “Self.  If you could just get some ice on that, it might help.”  I answered myself out loud, “But it’s all the way back there and I am afraid I’m going choke on it!”    Well, I can’t have that happen cuz I live alone and no one would hear me choke, sorta like the tree-falling-in-the-woods thing.  My dogs would probably bark out with high-five paws, “Ding, Dong the witch is dead!”  They love me so!  It was then that it hit me!  My daughter-in-law had left a couple of tampons on the bathroom shelf last time she was here. What if I soaked a tampon in water and froze it?  Now, hold on and hear me out!  It would fit in my mouth, right? It wouldn’t fall apart and it has a string on it so I could yank it out if I accidently swallowed it after ingesting too much liquid sedative.  I was very excited about my idea and put the pedal to the metal.

OK, so I get home and plop two of them babies in a cup of water.  Well, DANG!  They swelled up so big I wouldn’t be able to fit it in my mouth, let alone anywhere else.  Granted, it’s been at least 15 years since I had to use one of “those” for its intended purpose and was amazed at how much Tampaxic technology has improved; but I managed to think fast on my feet and squeezed out the water and threw my self-invented ice-rolls into the freezer.

After a few more cans of liquid encouragement, I checked on my ice-pons fearing that they had frozen to the floor of the freezer and I would be spending the rest of the night scraping shredded cotton.  Surprisingly, they hadn’t; and with great anticipation of relieve, I bit down hard on my frozen cotton baby.

“Phatooey!” It tasted horrible!  I’d forgotten about the new and improved “deodorant” and smell-good, perfumy stuff. Oh well, it was a good idea and would have worked if we didn’t have to smell so good in every place all the time.  I rinsed my mouth with liquid sedative and headed off to bed for some poorly needed sleep.

Whatever happened to good ol’, clean, earth-grown cotton?

P.S. By the way, this article is true and written with a tongue-in-cheek flavor cuz it hurts too much to talk.  Thank God he gave me two hands, typing lessons, and a dentist.