The ABCDE's of a Bad Omen
“That was a bad omen,” I said as I slid into the driver’s seat. An omen is an alert. An indicator. Something unwanted and unexpected is parked somewhere beyond your current horizon waiting. It’s not months or years out there. No, it is more immediate because it applies specifically to the activity or plans you have made and in which you are about to engage. It is not something that has signaled a previous warning. It’s anonymous and rudely interrupts out of nowhere. The nature of this trip in a car suggested its aims could be directly related to my financial, physical, or mechanical interests, or all of the above.
I had sprung from the bed like a Jack-In-the-Box at 3:30 am to get a quick start for California on January 15.
I hit the start button on the Lexus.
Nothing. I pushed again and several more times.
Nothing.
After some unexpected battery maintenance that appeared to be dirty contacts on the battery posts, I was finally off at 5:45 am. As I drove in the dark, I was aware. Something lurked out there. Where was it? I raced through possible events of the last few days thinking of potential hints of portent signs I might have seen cluing me to what I might expect.
Daylight came. I slipped through Florida, nothing. A good sign. Same with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. After 600 miles, my misgivings had dissipated. I was even more relaxed as the Lexus flawlessly hummed through the arid plains and tumbleweeds of West Texas and New Mexico. Whatever happened to that battery had no doubt been cured after a 1,000 mile drive with the alternator fully charging the battery. No concerns there. Climbing though the mountains of New Mexico and parking in front of Smoky the Bear Cafe in Capitan, I was flushed clean of concerns, tensions, or forebodings.
However, I was at that very moment at the same junction that Lloyd Bridges always pointed out on his TV program “Sea Hunt” before he plunged into the water when he always said the same thing, “Little did I know . . . “
About to walk into that restaurant, I was approximately 50 feet from the fulfillment of the omen I had interpreted like a Medium in Florida 3 days ago. It was in the restaurant sitting invisibly in the booth where I would take my place perfectly and exactly in its lap, where, like an apparition, it entered into me just before I bit down on a hamburger. When I did, an implant on the upper left side of my mouth simply folded over and came out. When you receive a dental implant, you get 3 things. One, a permanent, stainless steel screw - or post - is drilled into your head in the bone under your gums. It acts like a tooth root. After a few months, an abutment is screwed into this post, and glued on top of that is a prosthetic tooth or cap. I reached in through the chomped hamburger and pulled out the whole business - a dental screw (or implant post), abutment, and crown. I was holding the entire implant in my hand.
Up until this moment, my overall purpose had been a road trip to California and a visit to some friends I had not seen for some time. I immediately became aware that just like that, the real purpose of this trip was an unscheduled trip to Mexico to visit another friend I had not seen for a year and a half, Jorge Sanchez. My dentist. So I wrapped the tooth in a napkin and stuck it in my pocket.
That was Part A of the omen.
Part B came that night in Alamogordo, NM, when my battery said, “We’re done here.” I fortunately found someone to jump my battery one last time so I could get to Las Cruces. But the next morning $119 was extracted for a new battery from my financial cushion.
On the next night, Part C of the omen - like the ghost of Christmas Future in “A Christmas Carol” - jangled into my presence at just about midnight as I was emptying my pockets and throwing tissues into the toilet. I did not know at the time that I was right at that instant looking into my future, which was revealed the next day when I awoke the next morning looking for the dental screw, abutment, and crown wrapped in tissue. I had flushed into the sewer system of Arizona, a screw, abutment, and a $1,000 crown.
By this time, I figured that the elements of my omen had been satisfied and completely fulfilled. It had gone elsewhere to tormentI some other poor devil because I was now headed to Mexico where all semblance of dental terror for me had vanished. There were no fears to be allayed by visiting my Mexican dentist. This had not always been the case. In grade school, my mother sent me to the dentist by myself. As I neared his office, I said to myself, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I froze like a rat in a store front. But those days were over.
Most people heading for the dentist would be thinking the omen is about to unfold its best nightmare. They were about to descend into the 9th circle of Dante’s hell where they were next in line behind Attila the Hun who was sitting in a dental chair with Satan the dentist standing over him on the arms of the dental chair trying to control a jack hammer bouncing up and down inside Attila’s head as he was getting a root canal. But I was impervious to that. I had already been through all the Medieval torture a dentist could invent. I had had so many root canals, fillings, implants, bridges, extractions, and veneers with Jorge Sanchez that I thought if I ever become really bored, I would go to Jorge for another implant just to have something to do.
It seems that some kind of infection had gotten under that implant and disintegrated the bone into which the screw, abutment, and the a tooth had been ratcheted. There was no more bone left to hold it in place. So, although I was taking on another bone graft and screw, the entire procedure was painless and over in 20 minutes. There was only one thing that changed me from a relaxed person into Iron Man. It was the anticipation of that needle going through the roof of my mouth. My entire body locked up like an ingot. My fists clenched and my arms contracted into steel bars. I could have bent a railroad spike. The prospective insertion of a hypodermic needle up there makes dental midgets out of dental marines. Yet, no omen appeared. His business was not here.
When I came out into the waiting room and headed for the front door, lo and behold, there was the omen, appearing like the Invisible Man and perched on the sofa, smiling. I knew Part D was somewhere here in this waiting room. The omen arose and accompanied me over to the receptionist. My eyes followed as he pointed his finger down to a piece of paper and rested his digit on the word TOTAL - $2100.
With Part D, this omen telegraphed a clue that there is a Part E coming in July, August, or September to think about. That happens when I return to Mexico for the abutment and artificial tooth I discarded. Since that tell is 6 months in advance and in Mexico, that means the omen is still open-ended, like a movie that suggests a sequel.
I had sprung from the bed like a Jack-In-the-Box at 3:30 am to get a quick start for California on January 15.
I hit the start button on the Lexus.
Nothing. I pushed again and several more times.
Nothing.
After some unexpected battery maintenance that appeared to be dirty contacts on the battery posts, I was finally off at 5:45 am. As I drove in the dark, I was aware. Something lurked out there. Where was it? I raced through possible events of the last few days thinking of potential hints of portent signs I might have seen cluing me to what I might expect.
Daylight came. I slipped through Florida, nothing. A good sign. Same with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. After 600 miles, my misgivings had dissipated. I was even more relaxed as the Lexus flawlessly hummed through the arid plains and tumbleweeds of West Texas and New Mexico. Whatever happened to that battery had no doubt been cured after a 1,000 mile drive with the alternator fully charging the battery. No concerns there. Climbing though the mountains of New Mexico and parking in front of Smoky the Bear Cafe in Capitan, I was flushed clean of concerns, tensions, or forebodings.
However, I was at that very moment at the same junction that Lloyd Bridges always pointed out on his TV program “Sea Hunt” before he plunged into the water when he always said the same thing, “Little did I know . . . “
About to walk into that restaurant, I was approximately 50 feet from the fulfillment of the omen I had interpreted like a Medium in Florida 3 days ago. It was in the restaurant sitting invisibly in the booth where I would take my place perfectly and exactly in its lap, where, like an apparition, it entered into me just before I bit down on a hamburger. When I did, an implant on the upper left side of my mouth simply folded over and came out. When you receive a dental implant, you get 3 things. One, a permanent, stainless steel screw - or post - is drilled into your head in the bone under your gums. It acts like a tooth root. After a few months, an abutment is screwed into this post, and glued on top of that is a prosthetic tooth or cap. I reached in through the chomped hamburger and pulled out the whole business - a dental screw (or implant post), abutment, and crown. I was holding the entire implant in my hand.
Up until this moment, my overall purpose had been a road trip to California and a visit to some friends I had not seen for some time. I immediately became aware that just like that, the real purpose of this trip was an unscheduled trip to Mexico to visit another friend I had not seen for a year and a half, Jorge Sanchez. My dentist. So I wrapped the tooth in a napkin and stuck it in my pocket.
That was Part A of the omen.
Part B came that night in Alamogordo, NM, when my battery said, “We’re done here.” I fortunately found someone to jump my battery one last time so I could get to Las Cruces. But the next morning $119 was extracted for a new battery from my financial cushion.
On the next night, Part C of the omen - like the ghost of Christmas Future in “A Christmas Carol” - jangled into my presence at just about midnight as I was emptying my pockets and throwing tissues into the toilet. I did not know at the time that I was right at that instant looking into my future, which was revealed the next day when I awoke the next morning looking for the dental screw, abutment, and crown wrapped in tissue. I had flushed into the sewer system of Arizona, a screw, abutment, and a $1,000 crown.
By this time, I figured that the elements of my omen had been satisfied and completely fulfilled. It had gone elsewhere to tormentI some other poor devil because I was now headed to Mexico where all semblance of dental terror for me had vanished. There were no fears to be allayed by visiting my Mexican dentist. This had not always been the case. In grade school, my mother sent me to the dentist by myself. As I neared his office, I said to myself, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I froze like a rat in a store front. But those days were over.
Most people heading for the dentist would be thinking the omen is about to unfold its best nightmare. They were about to descend into the 9th circle of Dante’s hell where they were next in line behind Attila the Hun who was sitting in a dental chair with Satan the dentist standing over him on the arms of the dental chair trying to control a jack hammer bouncing up and down inside Attila’s head as he was getting a root canal. But I was impervious to that. I had already been through all the Medieval torture a dentist could invent. I had had so many root canals, fillings, implants, bridges, extractions, and veneers with Jorge Sanchez that I thought if I ever become really bored, I would go to Jorge for another implant just to have something to do.
It seems that some kind of infection had gotten under that implant and disintegrated the bone into which the screw, abutment, and the a tooth had been ratcheted. There was no more bone left to hold it in place. So, although I was taking on another bone graft and screw, the entire procedure was painless and over in 20 minutes. There was only one thing that changed me from a relaxed person into Iron Man. It was the anticipation of that needle going through the roof of my mouth. My entire body locked up like an ingot. My fists clenched and my arms contracted into steel bars. I could have bent a railroad spike. The prospective insertion of a hypodermic needle up there makes dental midgets out of dental marines. Yet, no omen appeared. His business was not here.
When I came out into the waiting room and headed for the front door, lo and behold, there was the omen, appearing like the Invisible Man and perched on the sofa, smiling. I knew Part D was somewhere here in this waiting room. The omen arose and accompanied me over to the receptionist. My eyes followed as he pointed his finger down to a piece of paper and rested his digit on the word TOTAL - $2100.
With Part D, this omen telegraphed a clue that there is a Part E coming in July, August, or September to think about. That happens when I return to Mexico for the abutment and artificial tooth I discarded. Since that tell is 6 months in advance and in Mexico, that means the omen is still open-ended, like a movie that suggests a sequel.