The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Let’s say you got a bizness like mine and maybe Ford Motor Company. Most of us corporate types worry about short term profits to keep our investors happy and our shares on the Dow Jones up. But we always plan for the future, five years or so at least. If we have a regime in power that gives incentives, say, for buying Electric Vehicles and maybe supports government investment in public art, particularly stained glass art, me and the Ford boyz will probably tool up, upgrade our facilities, plan for additional hiring and basically veer in that direction rather than, say, stick with fossil fuel guzzlers or, in my case, residential bathroom window art.

Now the Detroit crowd can’t run around the country installing tens of thousands of charging stations that will incentivize EV purchases, even with some heavy discounts on pricing, which means their investment needs that kind of infrastructure support. You drive a Model T cross country back in grandpa’s day, you wouldn’t go if you worried about locating a gas station in Nowhere, South Dakota. You might not even buy a horseless carriage at all, just stick with the nag and the buggy. And if the government’s Art in Public Places Program disappeared, why would I buy extra inventory, rent a large studio or hire assistants when all I need is a table, minimal supplies and just myself as underpaid employee?

What me and my corporate companions need most is some consistency in our government. The last thing in the world Ford MoCo wants or needs is the New Regime rolling in with a pledge to drill baby drill, discontinue buying incentives for EV’s and cutting the infrastructure funds to build a nationwide network of charging stations and loudly proclaiming that fossil fuels are the real future of America. All those cheap and very competitive EV’s being built in China, well, we’ll just ban them from being imported into our country. Trouble is, China will sell them to every other country in the world. Competition, the capitalist motto? Fuggetaboutit!

And as for public art? Well, let’s be honest here, we used to build courthouses, fire stations, university buildings, city halls and all the rest with the idea that the architecture and the art would inspire its citizenry. Think Rome, Athens, Paris, London, Stanwoodopolis and Smokey Point. They didn’t build the cheapest and quickest construction. They built modern day secular cathedrals. Those days are past for this capitalist yahoo. I only hope folks still want some artistic privacy in their privvies….

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After an hour in the South End Dental Clinic chair, I’m slowly starting to feel my face again. It’s been years since the last road construction in my mouth and I’d forgotten — or repressed — the uniqueness of the dental experience. Mouth dams, jackhammers, sump pumps, interrogation lighting and full disclosure on finances, assets and lienholders.

Like I said, it’s been awhile in between visits, something to do with the lack of dental insurance. You want to see the face of poverty, look at a person’s teeth, at least the ones that aren’t missing. I’m trying the best I can to keep mine. But … when the good doctor shows me the estimate for filling a cavity, $250 (not counting x-rays,etc.) versus what the bill will be if this is a root canal, $2200 —which is what he expects it to be — you can maybe understand why the frugal shopper might opt to have the damn tooth pulled right out of his head for good, skip the anaesthetic.

My last root canal and crown cost $1100. The dentist in Stanwoodopolis drilled twice and didn’t get the infected nerve cleaned out. The last visit he asked if I wanted to give it a 3rd go or have him refer me to a specialist. I said, gee Bob,I didn’t get a dental degree but since you need to ask, let’s go with someone who knows what they’re doing, which is obviously neither of us.

You want to spoil a doctor/client relationship, this is pretty direct. Course when I had to have the specialist’s temporary crown replaced with a permanent one, something beneath him apparently, I went to a new dentist. News travels fast in Podunk and I got a pretty cold shoulder from my new guy. Another last visit. Which is why, after 15 years, I’m at the newly opened South End Pain Clinic, no records transferred, no toxic gossip exchanged. Just money. The way I remember dentistry in the good old days….

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