I had a dental appointment today to have my bi-annual teeth cleaning.  Honestly, I have no problem with going to the dentist mainly because my hygienist prattles away all the while shoving sharp, pointy tools deep into my gum line.   Her name is Theresa, and her subjects are quite diverse.  In fact, I often tend to forget the torture she doing in my mouth because you never know what's going to pop out of hers.  Today she told me she and her husband, Mike, had just gotten a new puppy, a Yellow Lab they named Mookie.  On previous visits she had filled me in on their previous dogs, a Rottweiler and a Black Lab, both of whom came to have sad, sad endings.  She had also filled me in, some time ago I might add, that she could not have children so their dogs became substitute kids.  Mookie, at fifteen weeks is evidently the delight of their lives.  I'm glad.  Dogs are fun.  One of the best things I've ever done in my life was get a dog.

A facsimile of Mookie

This morning, as she began carving the gum away from my upper left molars, she told me how Mookie had an emergency Vet visit last week: a lower tract disturbance as well as a UTI.  At that point I had no idea what a UTI was, little did I know I was shortly going to find out.  As she was detailing Mookie's ordeal, she said that the puppy, "has these long hairs growing out around her vagina and they seem to hold her pee.  I think that's why she had the UTI.  We wipe her with towelettes but I don't know if they work.  Does your dog have hairs growing out around her vagina?"  Her next sentence was "You seem to be bleeding quite a lot around these molars, are you sure I'm not hurting you?"  I didn't answer because my mind was still stumbling around the dog's vagina.  Now I've never been to Dental Hygienists school, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some form of course on the propriety of certain subjects.  You know?  Things to stay away from, like politics, and religion, and your puppies' vagina.  This is not to say I was offended, in fact far from it.  This was just one of those things you don't expect to hear in the dentist's chair, and I have to say, I've been laughing about it all day.