From the "Dear Josie" advice column in Josie & The Pussycats #73 (December 1973), a poignant look at the problems facing yesterday's youth:
Wow. Josie takes the "tough love" approach to a whole new level. The quotation marks around "groovy" and "bells" give the proceedings a certain Jack Webb je ne sais quoi:
"Flares," "bells," "Bolivian boot-cuts" -- cute "with it" names for something as insidious as communist ideology. You kids need to realize that crimes against fashion are no laughing matter.
While Josie's rather harsh response to poor L.J. overlooked the possibility that kids can be capriciously cruel to their peers, I do concur that wearing bell bottoms is never the solution.
Sparks - Angst in My Pants (from Angst in My Pants, 1982) - This fine slice of quirky new wave pop was inspired by Kierkegaard's Edifying Discourses on the Dread Associated with One's Trousers Tenting Up at Inopportune Moments (itself a response to Hegel's Wissenschaft der Kameltoe).
Orbital - Pants (from The Blue Album, 2004) - This is one of two trouserly tracks featured on Orbital's final album. (The other track, "Acid Pants," was done in collaboration with -- surprise, surprise -- Sparks. Such is the power of pants-love.)
First Choice - Smarty Pants (from Armed and Extremely Dangerous, 1973) - The first days of disco.
This is (hopefully) the last entry in my toothache series of posts, and I had anticipated a more upbeat conclusion to things. I even had the perfect song picked out to accompany today's entry:
The Brady Bunch - It's a Sunshine Day (from The Kids from the Brady Bunch, 1972) - I know my affection for gooey, sugary things got me into this situation in the first place, but still...
But that decision was made yesterday afternoon, while my face was numbed into quietude by a local and I was giddy with how well things had gone. And go well they did; after a morning of trying to keep the increasingly excruciating pain at arm's length, my wife and I made the trip to the endodontist's office in Quincy Center. My wife was spot on about their quality of care. Every aspect of the treatment was handled with a maximum eye toward allieviating any pain or discomfort I might have been feeling. Because of my wretched state, they cut straight to the procedure from the consulation, and it was performed skillfully, quickly -- and most importantly -- painlessly. Seriously, I've had shallow fillings done that were worse ordeals.
The source of the pain was an infection at the root, so the endodonist wrote me up prescriptions for antibiotics (to clear out the remaining infection) and Vicodin (to handle any remaining pain in the immediate aftermath). I wasn't so keen on taking the painkillers, as my experiences have shown me that there's always an unpleasant debt to be paid for the sake of prescription pain relief.
AFTER the local began to wear off and the inflamed nerves resumed their final doomed offensive, I quickly changed my mind. I forced down a small bowl of soup (so as not to drop powerful narcotics into an empty gut), took a Vicodin, and laid back on my bed, awaiting the bliss of pharmaceutically-induced sleep.
And it truly was blissful, until the last of the local wore off, at which point the neighbor of the treated tooth went supernova, a sharp, searing pain that cut through the narcotic haze like a gamma ray laser. At first I thought the Vicodin wasn't working, but as the initial dose faded the pain got even worse. My mind began coming up with horrible scenarios like "what if they got the wrong tooth?" and "the jarring of the drill must have it cracked open."
As there was nothing that could be done until the morning, I prepared myself for another sleepless night, retreating to the couch (so as to not disturb the wife) and settling in until 9:00 AM with a bowl of ice cubes and some Katamari Damacy. To keep the pain at an almost manageable state, I started upping the dose. One Vicodin every four hours became one and a half every three hours, damn the consequences. Sometime after three in the morning, I did finally nod off for a stretch, but it was a sleep haunted by nightmares which can only be described as "Tina Yothers hosting a gameshow about the apocalypse, presented Phoenix Wright-style."
I woke at seven this morning with a severe narcotic hangover, but no pain. My original assessment of the problem -- a worse than usual case of post-op jarred bone trauma -- was apparently correct. Thank Providence for that, at least. I've spent the rest of the day so far alternating between staggering nauseously around the house and passing out cold on the bed, feeling like nothing so much as a dessicated husk of my previous self. (The lack of sleep and decent nourishment these past couple days hasn't helped.)
The lack of pain in my teeth and jaw is nice, though. Hopefully I'll be a state to fully appreciate that soon.
The Crystal Method - Trip Like I Do (from Vegas, 1997) - Over the ottoman, over the edge of the rug, over Oscar the Pughuahua, over my own two feet...
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