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head might detonate
Wednesday, January 16 2008
I was at the dentist today for a cleaning. Last time I had it done the hygienist went all hardcore on my mouth, placing her foot on my forehead for leverage as she raked the plaque starting below the gumline, somewhere on the roots of my teeth. It had been a miserable experience, although my teeth were so healthy afterwards that a couple weeks passed before the usual blood on my toothbrush returned. Today's hygienist was much gentler, although it was hardly a pleasant experience. She was wearing so much headgear and eye protection that she looked as if she was guarding against the possibility that my head might detonate. Whenever she told me to move my head this way or that, her words were so muffled that all I could do was guess. I was right about fifty percent of the time, which would have also been my success rate had she been speaking a foreign language.
While I was in town, I went to P&T Surplus on the Rondout and then visited Darren, the guy who hung our upstairs drywall five years ago. He was needing help moving files onto a portable hard drive, so I showed him the basics of drag and drop. While I was there he told me about getting a free "audit" from a Scientologist while in Florida. He'd been hooked up to a device that measures electrical resistance and had been astounded when it detected stress in his life. He'd regarded the experience without a prudent amount of skepticism and had even bought a paperback copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. Darren showed me the book, which looks like a trashy supermarket novel. It even has the ugly cover art, in this case a painting of an erupting volcano. I warned Darren, "It is a crazy cult you know," adding, "don't give them any money." He assured me he wouldn't, but that he was benefitting from the ideas in the book. Darren is a seeker, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. In this case it didn't seem like it is a good thing. Scientology exists only to prey on people like him.
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