729 Dental Emergencies

729 Dental Emergencies

They always happen on weekends. Dental emergencies never take place when the dentist is actually in the office and working and has open appointments.

You have a gunshot wound? You can get it treated at 3 AM any day. Likewise a stabbing or a heart attack or a broken arm. But come up with a toothache on a Friday evening or a Saturday morning and there's nothing you can do until Monday.

If your dog or cat gets a torn ear in a fight, there are emergency vets, either on call or actually physically in a clinic nearby. Even in the middle of the night. If your toilet overflows or you're locked out of the house or the car, or if you have a flat tire and no jack, you can call the plumber or the locksmith or the Triple A. Heaven help you if you have a cavity or need a root canal.

You need a meal at 4 am? Denny's is open and so is McDonald's. If you feel the urge to buy a trampoline or an outboard motor or a mouse trap or a chainsaw at 3 am, there's always Wal-Mart. There are all-night CVS and Duane Reade drug stores. There are all night gas stations. There are all night convenience stores. But there are no all night dentists.

You can skip the meals, usually skip the vets, often skip the flats, often skip the locksmiths. Sometimes, you can even skip or postpone the emergency room. But no one can skip the dentist.

You get a sharp pain in the arm or leg, it's nothing much but a sharp pain the arm or leg. You get a sharp pain in the tooth or the gum -- you pray for death.

Shrapnel:

--Gloversville, NY is named for what most of its industry did there from the mid 1800s on. Those of us who knew of the place thought the leather industry died there decades ago. But according to a traveling craft show merchant who makes leather goods, that ain't the case. Still some tanneries there and -- he says -- some of the best in America.

--Too many of these have appeared here lately. But once again, it's time to say RIP, this time to former colleague Peter Shamin, 54, who passed away earlier this month after a series of long and ill-defined illnesses -- really long. Peter was a funny and disciplined rock jock on WNBC, a fine producer of Dr. Atkins' radio show and an equally fine engineer at WOR, an upstanding human being and one of those guys who you don't really know what he does until one day he can't show up and nothing gets done.

--How to get on the cutting edge of the blogosphere? Mention the recently famous and infamous even without something to say about them. Okay, here they are: LeBron James, Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, and just for old time's sake: Tiger Woods, Britney Spears and Judy Garland, so as they say at the auto races, searchers, start your engines.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010