Because You Can't Fix Stupid

Some of my best moments occur in the most unexpected of locations and situations. Take today for example.

I was sitting in the chair at my new dentist's office having my teeth cleaned and doing that chatting you do with your hygienist when you are trying to talk around a mouth full of hand. The girl from the front desk came bopping into the room. She is probably in her mid 20's and a pleasant if somewhat vacant girl. She asked the hygienist "Are you a vegetarian?" The hygienist, who for the sake of brevity I'll call "J", said "no, I'm not." Our hero, the receptionist, said "Oh. OK. I had a question." J told her to ask it because she could probably answer it.

So Miss Mensa says "can vegetarians eat animal crackers?"

I am not kidding here.

OK, some of you know me well enough to know that having two hands, a mirror and a sharp object in my mouth at this particular moment was probably for the best. I froze. J paused. And giving the biggest benefit of the doubt I've ever seen in my life, J proceeded to tell her about the different kinds of vegetarians and how different kinds of foods, depending on how they're made, are ok for some and not for others. By this time, she had her hands out of my mouth and clenched in her lap so what the hell, I joined in too. And when we were done, Einstein utters the following words, and I shit you not, this verbatim:

"Oh. OK. So the shape of the food doesn't have anything to do with it?"

J tried her best, but I could see the muscles in her jaw twitching behind her mask. I dropped my head. I gnawed the inside of face off trying to keep it in. And J quietly said "No. Honey, no. The shape of the food doesn't matter."

As soon as the room was clear, I lost it. I turned to J and said "Holy Jesus and little fishes, tell me you don't let her play with any of the sharp shit around here, OK?" J fell apart. I said "you should tell her that if you order chicken nuggets in the shape of tiny dinosaurs, it's still not OK to eat them just because dinosaurs are extinct, but first tell her what extinct means, and that even though dinosaurs aren't real any more and the food is SHAPED like dinosaurs doesn't change anything and that it's still friggin chicken, OK?" J had to take off her mask. She had to wipe her eyes and blow her nose and change her gloves.

I said is she for REAL? Really?

J choked out "Girl, this is every single day around here."



I told her I have a blog and we need to chat because I'm going to start an entire chapter on "crap I heard while in the dentist's chair that you are not gonna believe."

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers.

That is right up there with "Did Jesus have a dog?"

I swear to you if I had money falling out of my ass, I'd go call a basket company, have them fill it with animal crackers and send it to J with a note that said "I've hated the dentist all my life and I must thank you because never have I laughed that hard within 100 yards of the chair of pain. You have my thanks and my sympathies."