My Achilles Heel

If your Achilles tendon snaps you’re in a world of hurt and you’re out of the ballgame, (if you play ball, that is) for a year or more, or maybe forever. In that case your Achilles tendon is your Achilles Heel, which is another term for your weak spot.

Just so you know, Achilles was a hero from Greek myth, legend, and Homer’s epic poem “The Iliad.” Evidently when he was born his semi-divine mother dunked him in the River Styx which made him invulnerable all over to harm -- except for his heel where his mom held on to him. Although he was the great warrior he died when an arrow struck him in his heel, which is why we say your Achilles Heel is your weak spot.

Just so you know, my Achilles Heel is in my mouth.

I’m not saying my foot is in my mouth although its true I put my foot in my mouth all the time.

My teeth are my Achilles Heel. They’re my weak spot. I’ve lost track of how many root canals and crowns I’ve had in my mouth.

So anyway, I’d no sooner finished getting a couple of dental implants which involved a couple extractions when the top of another crown just popped off. I’d already had a root canal in that tooth, so I didn’t feel much pain, but my dentist sent me to the same dental surgeon who’d performed my earlier extractions. He’s great. Basically he gets me numb, reaches in, and pulls out a tooth. Kind of like Little Jack Horner who stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, “What a good boy am I.”

The surgeon works out of an office an hour away in Fort Wayne. So I was driving there, ready to get this tooth out and aware that it might be a little more traumatic because it broke off at the gum line, so there was nothing sticking up for the dentist to take hold of, when I realized I was starting to get a tooth ache elsewhere in my mouth. Soon the pain was so bad I could hardly stand it.

Are you kidding me? Couldn’t this tooth wait until I had the other one taken out?

Evidently not. I don’t know what angel I offended but someone up there has it in for me. My ride home (my spouse Jennie drove on the way back) was doubly miserable because when the pain killer wore off the extraction hurt far worse than I expected, while the new tooth ache was chiming in with dental harmony.

After a weekend of misery I showed up at my hometown dentist. He looked at the x-rays and told me something I kinda guessed. That tooth has to come out too. Back to Fort Wayne!

Achilles is remembered for his Heel. As for me, I just want to be toothless in heaven so I don’t have to be rushed to the dental emergency room up there in Eternity General every time another molar goes bad. And if the Choir Eternal chimes in with my theme song, “Crown Him With Many Crowns,” every time I come to the plate, I’ll just have to stomp off and sulk somewhere by myself for awhile.