Not always daily, but often enough, like October 8, 2011 for instance.

I don't know what the score is, because, as usual, I am getting relaxed despite the paraphernalia they cram into my mouth. I like dentist chairs. I come to realize I probably should have had therapy throughout my life so I could lie down in the middle of the day. And today, because the tooth they are working on is dead dead dead, there will be no needle.

Speaking of dead, getting ever more comfortable, Very Long Tooth sees the wind moving outside the tipi and begins his dream catching. Or is it a vision quest? Very Long Tooth isn't sure: he hasn't been at this (despite his name) very long.

Settling back into the chair, he images two different technicians working on him. One of them is quite unusual looking, in a fun, grotesque kind of way. Let's call him Murg.

Murg, we learn by the conversation, is not happy with his present career path and is apprenticing part-time on the night shift at Acie Arm & A Leg, a cadaver chop shop. The pay isn't great to start, but he has been assured, once he goes full-time and gets promoted to organ donors, he will do quite nicely.

What do they have you doing now? Hand me that compress. They have me on the anatomy specials... you know, the stuff students get at medical and art schools. Art

schools? Pass me the number five. They cut apart human remains for art school students? We don't call them "remains" - it's supposed to be demeaning. We call them items. Whatever. They cut apart human items to study at art schools these days!? Well, yes. There are some teachers who still believe that without a firm understanding of the real world, an artist wouldn't have anything worthwhile to say in any avante garde kinda way...

Very Long Tooth's attention begins to wander. He thinks about starting a school of his own: one that would teach sensitive or brainy types how to carry on basic conversations in sportseeze.

Drifting again, he sees himself in the future, sitting in a similar chair, but under a different dentist. Dr. Dental, having taken some advanced courses, maintains a certified LoboOtomy franchise as part of his practice. Long Tooth has been experiencing some brain fog lately and a podiatrist friend told him to consider some sort of transplant. "Not the whole thing," advised the foot man, "Maybe just a section or two."

It turns out that Long Tooth has minor Over-coagulated Cranial Buleemiaphasia in the southwest hemisphere. This was determined by Dr. Dental's intensive and thorough 32 point multiple choice evaluation.

A patented cranial circumincision device is positioned with pinpoint accuracy at Long

Tooth's head and the Dental/LoboOtomy chair is slowly rotated until the seamless incision is complete. (Needless to say, a special dose of novacaine had been properly administered.) A deceptively simple looking surgical tool, the Lid Bar, in Lazar's skillful hands, is used to "pop the top" and expose the gray matter gold. As the LoboOtomy brochure puts it, "Neat as you please and considerably faster!"

Long Tooth's vision is short on details, but he knows that part of his brain is removed (or pushed aside) and a "new" section added and wired up in a thrice. What section is installed during a typical LoboOtomy procedure depends, of course, on one's medical plan, what the market will bear, and what is available. Lucky Long Tooth ends up with a 512 gram import from Gervinia which leaves him with the time-consuming inclination to bow politely to every tree he passes, but improves his math skills considerably.

Back in the 21st century, Dr. Hirirpi is summarizing the procedure and, in a nice way, blaming my tooth for his difficulty. I want to console him, accepting full blame, but before I can he is done and gone to a distant cubicle.

Lacey, guiding me to my feet and the front desk, is apologetic. But I will have none of it. Another successful dental daydream completed - another lovely distant world explored!