"And That's The Tooth!"

I went to the dentist the other day.

Like the average Korean, dentists love to kill themselves.
That is, so the story goes.
I'm not sure whether or not North America collectively read this statistic somewhere and filed it away.
Or if we all just heard it on The Whole Nine Yards and assumed it to be true.
It probably is true.
I think that everyone has a natural urge to believe whatever Matthew Perry says.
It's a disposition of his, isn't it?
Matt LeBlanc did softcore TV before Friends. 
It's true.
I personally watched an episode of Red Shoe Diaries that had him playing a sexy man in a vest.
I swear.
Anyway, I don't know what dentists have to be so suicidal about.
Decent pay, sexy assistants and wonderful teeth, for starters.
Those are perks. Those are job perks.
Since it's a profession-based suicide number, people assume that dentists are killing themselves because they hate being dentists.
I'm not willing to buy it.
There are far worse jobs.
Why don't we constantly hear about janitors blowing their brains out mid-mopping?
The stigma with dentists, of course, is that they're miserable because people hate to visit them.
Everyone fears them.
They never have good news.
This doesn't do it for me either.
All medical practitioners have to deliver bad news from time to time.
All of them are feared by some people.
Telling a man he has pancreatic cancer seems like more of a downer than telling the same man he has a pair of cavities.

I chose the dentist I chose because I sold his assistant a car.
Made sense at the time. Dental assistant. I need a dentist. I'm new in town.
Prone to not thinking things through, I didn't really think it through.
It's sort of uncomfortable.
I didn't expect her to be right in there with me.
Wrong about that.
She affixed my bib  and worked the suction.
She put plastic thingies in my mouth for my X-rays.
I had to bite down on them and, prudish as I am, they were hitting my gag reflexer.
So, I was gagging and urging as she was doing this, and she was asking me to please bite down.
I was being sexy because gagging is sexy now.
And I didn't want to be sexy in front of some woman I sold a car to.
So I learned, anyway.
For those of you who are still reading solely for my results, I have cavities.
Not sure how many.
Enough.
Enough to have a vague idea of the actual number, which suggests that I have enough.
Also, one of my teeth is fucked, which I knew before going.
I just wasn't sure how fucked.
The answer, as it turns out, is "all the way."
Might have to yank it.
But, even if it must be so.
Even if I fidget in my chair and track a tear or two down my cheek, I still don't think that's reason for my dentist to go home and 
stick his head in his oven.

Do We Have A Deal?

There's just something about a new suit, y'know?
Like a recently purchased handgun, or a new affair, there's just something about a suit that puts a spring in your step.
I took a picture of myself wearing it, reflected in the chrome of an old-timey car.
See, we have this display piece car down at the used lot.
It's more like a stagecoach without the horses. One of those cars.
Model T, probably.
Thought I'd capture myself in my new suit in the headlight.
Try to look stylish.
Being stylish has a lot to do with being photographed near old shit.
You don't show any respect for the old shit, mind you.
You just get your picture taken near it.
Like a band doing their photo shoot in a cemetery.
Anyway, the pic turned out blurry, so I'm not going to bother uploading it.
That takes steps.
Tweeting it, however, was relatively painless, so you can look at it over there if you're desperate enough for new photos of me.
Oh! I can embed the tweet right in here.
I'll be doing that far more often now.

$=suits from Sears outlet store=confidence=sexy. twitter.com/paulwarford/st…
— Paul Warford (@paulwarford) May 15, 2013

Look, I can ask about throwing in the winter tires, but I don't know what answer my manager will give me.
Selling cars from the salesman's perspective is exactly like TV and nothing like TV.
When I mentioned in my interview that I had no sales experience, I really meant it.
Now, I suppose I do.
That being said, I would still hesitate to call myself a salesman.
I'm more like...
...I feel kinda like a tour guide sometimes.
Or, if I do the job well, I'm like a tour guide.
You know when you take a trip to Punta Cana, and there's that one resort employee who stands out?
"Punta Cana was fuckin' awesome, bud!
There was this dude, what was his name?"
"Enrique!"
"Enrique!Yeah! Enrique was fuckin' awesome, man.
Every time my drink was empty, Enrique was right there on the edge of the pool to fill it.
We told him that we were looking to go zip-lining without all of the safety harness bullshit, and he was like, 'Okay sir, we do that for you.'"
Everyone remembers him fondly, even though the girlfriends did find him 'a little touchy-feely'.
Nevertheless, Enrique will come up every time the trip is mentioned.
Because Enrique was accommodating.
If I'm doing my job properly, I have come to discover, I'm Enrique.
I have no real clout at the resort.
I don't know where the shrimp comes from, or whether or not it'll give you food poisoning, but I can get some delivered to your room.
All I am is a guy who works here. I just happen to be your guy.
More like concierge than a tour guide, really.
Oh right. TV.
I really do have to go see my manager.
You want the mats and stupid tonneau cover thingy included?
Can I do that?
I dunno. My manager will tell me.
90% of the time, when a car salesman tells you they have to ask their manager, they really mean that.
Just like TV.
However, unlike TV, we're not...I don't know what.
We're not shysters.
We're not - I'm not, anyway - out to fuck yourself and your wife from here to the gas station.
People are always trying to catch me on this hidden fee or that hidden fee.
That 'hidden fee' shit is in the past.
This isn't the 80s.
The cars are online. The prices are online.
The sticker price is the sticker price.
It's not like you pick out a sweater at Eddie Bauer, and while in line at the checkout you whisper to your wife, "I wonder what kind of a mark-up wool tax they stick on this fucker."
Do you? Maybe you do.
There's no hidden anything.
Sure, the price can be manipulated, but the margins for this are not as great as you'd think, and the parameters for them are pretty standard across the board.
Financing a Kia at a dealership in St. John's and a dealership in Ontario will be within dollars of each other.
No one's out to get you.
Except if we're talking used cars.
That's a different story.
I'll fuck a family out of their mortgage on a used car, if I can.

This post brought to you by Punta Cana Tourism.
And remember: If you have to get hepatitis, contract it in Punta Cana.

Bull Rush

How many bulls does a country need to have before someone says:
"Hey, let's let 'em all go, and then run from 'em!"
While we're on it, how do you round up dozens of bulls after they've had time to explore a city and some of its China shops?
Tranquilizers.
Thick-roped nets.
A huge Jesus sombrero.

I'm tired and wordless, but since I'm down to one post a full moon, I figured I should stop by and say something.
So, I'm saying that I'm tired and wordless.

Lighter Stuff

Did you know there's a helium shortage right now?
Besides having to anchor all our zeppelins, stoned kids who want to speak in funny voices are left suckin' air.
I've never done that, y'know.
The helium-funny-voice thing.
I couldn't definitively say why that is.
However, I spend a lot of time thinking about myself, so I do have some theories.
Or, just variations on the one theory, I guess:
Balloons have always made me uncomfortable.
Not when they're wafting about in the tent at the retirement party, mind you.
Inflating them. Tying them. Popping them.
Balloon maintenance. Balloon stuff.
Puts me on edge.
I've only successfully blown up a balloon (from flaccid) perhaps 5 to 7 times.
Generally, I just puff my cheeks out until someone takes pity on me and blows it up themselves.
Shameful.
I also heard an urban legend about a woman who was startled while inflating a balloon and she accidentally sucked it into her mouth and suffocated.
That always stuck with me and I think it made me afraid to put balloons near my mouth.
This isn't a joke; I'm not making this up.
However, adulthood has taught me to face my urban legends.
So, I intend to do the funny voice.
Unfortunately, there's a helium shortage right now.
Inhaling it to sound like a clown's assistant seems rather brash in these hard times.
Aerial views at football games are in jeopardy.

Almost spelled football with a 'p' just now.
Phootball.
Phutball.

If no one's going to listen to scientists, why do we have scientists?
"This could puncture a hole in the ozone, resulting in melanoma and gross moles that require removal."
"Whatever, scientist. How do you suggest I use Raid without aerosol cans?
I'll take my chances, genius."
Sure, scientists develop formulas to make better hair conditioners, but their legitimacy seems wasted.
"Helium shortage? Whatever, scientist.
Wait! Let me degrade you with my funny helium voice."

"There's No Place Like Home"

I could never be from Toronto; my disdain isn't stylish enough.
Comedy has afforded me several free meals and a slew of new acquaintances.
L.A. being too expensive a flight with too attractive a populace, a lot of comics bed down in Toronto.
I've had run-ins with the natives before.
Living in Banff, I roomed with Francis for a while.
He was all expensive trousers and constant, vocal judgement.
Don't get me wrong - I love Francis. I did then.
Today, he still stands as the only man whose back I have shaved (and I wouldn't do it for just anyone).
But everywhere we went. Everything we did.
"Oh, in Toronto etc. etc."
"In Toronto there'd be extra bathroom stalls in here."
"In Toronto you could buy coriander at any time of the day."
"In Toronto there are more homeless people."
I used to make fun of him for it all the time.
I lived in Toronto for a while. I get it now.
It's a teeming place with a real pulse.
What Francis said time and again was, I'm sure, usually true.
You can get an Asian woman to massage you and then jerk you off at 2 in the morning.
You can find somewhere to purchase a shower curtain immediately after your massage.
There is a restaurant representing every ethnicity - some shitty, some wonderful.
I get it.
There's more available. There's more to do.
I guess my problem, then, is the occasional Torontonian's inability to adjust.
You live in the biggest city in the country.
Other places will seem slight by comparison.
Those who are truly 'from' Toronto in the sense I'm talking about, they want it to be shittier everywhere else.
They look for fault.
I was eating poutine in one of the late night pizza corner places (see! We have late-night pizza) with a Toronto guy.
He's eating his chicken whatever it is. Wrap.
"I think the chicken's dry. Not sure if this is very good."
This is a bite or two in.
"Yup. Chicken's dry, guys."
Might as well add, "I knew it."
City Slickness isn't as charming as Billy Crystal portrayed it.
It's one thing to miss the comforts of the home you're used to.
It's another entirely to assume all other homes aren't built like yours.
It's not like I'd fly into Papau New Guinea and hope to find everything I'm used to here, and then complain when I didn't.
"I knew it. There's no 24-hour plumbing company here.
...
Nope. I checked Papau New Guinea411, AND the phone book.
I'll bet there isn't even a Rona on this whole goddamned continent."

Billy Crystal isn't looking good, by the way.
I don't know where his confidence level is, but he's disgusting.
I saw him on Letterman not long ago and I found it legitimately disturbing.
All of these surgeries.
You can dress up dying however you want, Billy...
However, the experience helped me realize one true fact:
If I, at 80 years, have a choice between a head that looks like a raisin, and a head that looks like a child's elbow, I know what my choice will be.