A Spoon Full Of Sugar?

Have you ever heard the saying; A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down? I have. I attribute the saying to a well known Disney Movie featuring a flying nanny and a household filled with spoiled rich kids, but I digress. The saying has held a lot of truth, reliance, pain, and now, innovation, for myself.

When I was a child, I remember getting sick one time and the doctor prescribed some sort of pill for me to take. It was a round pill, white in color, and thick. How thick? I'm not sure. How thick is too thick for an eight or nine year old boy?

With much regard to the apprehension I was feeling, and my self-preservation instinct kicking in, I refused to take the pill. My mother narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips, giving me one of those -you'll take this pill, you'll swallow it, and you'll like it- kind of looks. When I refused again, she went to the cupboard, and grabbed the loaf of bread.

As I stood and watched, my mother untwisted the "twist-tie" and pulled the second to last slice of bread out of the bag, and set it on the counter. "This will help," she said, closing the loaf of bread and putting it away before coming back to the kitchen sink where I was now nervously standing.

I should have prefaced this by saying, I believe I had swollen glands, or Strep. Whatever it was, I could barely swallow to start off with, my throat had been killing me, I had a cough, probably upper respiratory infection, and now that I think about it, I had been forced out of bed to come downstairs to the kitchen, in my underwear, freezing my ass off in the middle of winter (it was winter, but the house was always warm. I was just running a fever), to take my medicine. Sorry for the run-on sentence but damn. Just, damn.

Mom, I'm sorry. I don't mean to throw you under the bus here.... Life was different back then, and you did your damnedest to do right for all us kids. You did a great job. Now here's where I give you a little push as the bus comes skidding down that icy slope.

So, my mom stood there, eyes narrowed slightly, nostrils flaring just a bit. It was serious side-eye for a young boy who wants nothing more than to crawl back into bed and play with his Godzilla version of Stretch Arm Strong, or grab the box of Legos and fall asleep only to wake up to the agony of a lego sticking into his side...

"Here," she said, handing me third of the slice. "Do as I say." I have no idea if I agreed, or acknowledged her in any way shape or form. "You put the pill in your mouth. All the way back on your tongue. Then, you drink the water. Tilt your head back. Swallow. If the pill doesn't go down, take a bite of bread and swallow. The bread will force the pill down."

I think I must have blinked, which was all the verification that I had listened and understood her instructions that she needed. "Now open your mouth."

The next few minutes of my life went by in a blur. I have done much to block them out, but for the constant reminders that continue to plague me to this very day, which coincidentally have brought me to this moment in time, writing this story, I have failed. I will explain.

One moment I am attempting the same trick I once saw a Cottonmouth try, that being, attempting to swallow a bullfrog a good ten times its own girth, and the next moment I am projectile vomiting my lunch into the sink, my ten year old legs taught behind me, on tippy toes, straight as a 2 inch board.

My mother, undeterred by vomit and my own weakness, fishes the pill out of the mire and gives it a quick rinse before palming it back to me. "Do what I said," she instructed, and I do believe I had done what she had instructed, and failed. Failure was not an option though.

I slapped the palm of my hand against my mouth, rocketing that chunky white disc of medicinal into the back of my throat so far I instantly got the gag reflex going, which seemed to be inspiring for my mother. Watching me instantly start to do the throw-up maneuver indicated to her that everything was right on track, and she jammed a piece of bread into my mouth and told me to swallow. I did...and then I looked at her, my eyes going wide.

"See, I told you it would work," she said, smiling.

I did a kind of sideways nod at an angle, not a full denial like shaking my head, or talking sass would have done. But it was not a nod of agreement. It took my mom a split second before she realized the reason why I wasn't voicing my agreement with her was simple. I couldn't. Not only could I not speak, I couldn't breathe. I was at the beginning of my end. Choking to death...on medicine.

The next thing I know, my mother has me bent over the sink, my feet are off the floor, she's spraying water in my face, and then, she literally kicks me in the ass, and I cough up the pill. It falls into the sink basin, foaming bright white with a red stripe of my spit, and blood, curling across the top of it. My throat burns like a Mother-F'er, but I just tell her it hurts as I start to cry.

My mom looks distraught. She tells me she gave me the Heimlich, but it didn't work. At the time I didn't care what wrestling maneuvers my mom knew, or how she applied them to my situation, but years later I would discover something. My mom saved my life. Nah mom. It worked. That last kick in the ass just got me to open my mouth and spit the pill out. The Heimlich worked. You did great.

Me almost losing my life convinced my mother that maybe, just maybe, I couldn't actually swallow that pill. Maybe it was too big. Much like the Cottonmouth, I had abandoned my prey after getting it half-way down, and had given up on it, regurgitating it back into the world, ruined. That did NOT stop my mother from washing that pill off, and then cutting it into four pieces before making me chew it up in bread and then swallow it, but at least I got it down that time. Easy peasy.

As I got older, I realized something. I chewed everything. Excessively. Ahhhh, uhhhhh, mom? Mom, if you're reading this, look away. Skip to the next paragraph. This next part doesn't concern you. Okay? Well... As a child, I detested steak, pork chops, bacon, and rice. Steak was like shoe leather, extremely well done, so tough you had to SAW with a serrated blade for a good minute to get through it and where the knife cut, it actually created meat dust on either side of the blade. My mother's pork chops were probably used by the think tank that came up with Kevlar bullet -proof jackets, only Kevlar weighs less, so they went with that. Bacon was like strips of ready made smoked glass, perfect for serrating your gums and tongue, not so good for eating. Rice? How can you mess up rice? Hmmm. Let me see. Live out in the country, do everything from scratch, not live in a country that inherently teaches their children how to make rice, and let a woman try to do it on her own. Let's just say, she had a habit of soaking up all that extra water the rice was swimming in, at the end, by tossing in another cup of rice. That always did the trick. I still shudder at the thought.

Now, with that, and for absolutely no reason what-so-ever, I will give you all my easy recipe for...rice. Here it is. However much rice you have, use one and a half times the water. One cup of dry rice? Use one and a half cups of water. Cold or room temp water. There. Toss it in ANY non-stick pot or pan, kick the heat on HIGH and then, with a clean hand, stir. YES, I said HAND. If your hands are not clean enough to stir your rice, you should not be COOKING! Wash, wash, wash, clean your dirty-ass nails, keep your hands clean, and the reason you use your hands to stir is so that you can break any little clumps up as the water heats, AND you can tell how hot it's getting. Now, disclaimer time! If you're too dumb to tell when the water is too hot, or you're boiling your god-damned hands, then you get the same "I can't cook rice to save my life award" that my mom set the standard for in the winter of 1979! Oh, and also, don't try this. Cooking rice isn't for you.

Off on a tangent I know, but it has relevance. You might be saying, "but you gotta rinse the rice!" Nope. No you don't. You might do that, but you don't have to. It's not a requirement! Ask Uncle Roger how to cook rice. 1.) Buy a rice cooker. 2.) Put water and rice in the rice cooker. 3.) Turn on the rice cooker. 4.) Come back when the rice cooker is done. You might have to close the lid at some point but I don't use a rice cooker.

When the water gets too hot to keep playing in with your hands, swirling it back and forth, or making figure eights, or all the different patterns I do to bide the time and keep the rice off the bottom and flowing freely, you put the lid on and let it come to a boil. As soon as it hits a nice boil, kick the heat off, then back on LOW. Not 3, 2, or 1... LOW. If your stove doesn't have a "LOW" setting, then whatever the lowest setting is, is fine. If you don't understand or are still confused, you win the award. Go sit down and keep reading. Leave the rice making to others. For those still in the game, put the timer on for 20 minutes and when the done timer goes off, your rice is done. Go fluff it or just scoop it into your bowl or plate like they do in restaurants all over the world. Fresh hot rice, moist and cooked to perfection, has a distinct smell and is absolutely delicious. Okay. Moving on.

So I found I chewed everything to no end. Steak was more of a chew toy for me, than food. I would chew, suck out what little moisture and flavor was there, rehydrate with milk (the only acceptable dinner time drink during my childhood), and chew some more. Eventually, my napkin next to my plate concealed an entire steak's worth of tiny gristle and titanium rivaling fibers, chewed into a tightly wound bundle that could not be undone by the most experienced of silk-worm farmers. Pork chops were much the same. Rice and bacon were similar. Shovel, chew, ignore the semi-coincidental pain of repeatedly biting down on broken tooth fragments and trust in god that the crunch in your eardrums is not enamel, but actually something you can digest...

I had a lot of cavities as a child. A LOT. Did I mention that one of my dentist visits was used as a pilot for the second SAW movie? But seriously, whatever dentist my mother brought me to, repeatedly, every god-damned time, would slip and HOOK me in the inside of the cheek with that curved pick tool! Do any of you know how F-ing traumatizing it is to have that shit happen every time? EVERY TIME! I think that fucking guy did it on purpose! Sorry. Excuse my French but... FUCK! Every time.

By the time I graduated high school and joined the military, I could eat anything without fear. Nothing was too hard, too abrasive, too acidic, too caustic. I'd eaten wood before, gnawed on boards, bent metal and pulled nails with my teeth. In the military, they hooked me up with dental visits every couple of years and when I retired, they gave me one final inspection and made sure all my teeth looked great, regardless of whether they actually fit together properly. Besides teeth that banged together like an ill-fitting bear trap every time I closed my mouth, the military and extensive time spent on the high-seas, left me with another constant reminder of my inability to swallow large things. An acid scarred esophagus. No, it was not diagnosed, and still to this day, I have not had it diagnosed. I know I have it. I know what it's from. There's nothing I can do about it, other than... chew, chew, chew.

So, let's advance to just six months out of the military. My first tooth breakage. My shiny new chicklet teeth with perfect square edges the dentist hooked me up with at my exit exam, shattered. I went from Brad Pitt smiling to Tom Cruise with one big tooth in the middle. You didn't know? Yeah, me neither, but it's true. Ironically enough, that keeps your eyes off his mouth and on his eyes, which is where he catches you in the net. That was for all the lady fans of Tom Cruise. :)

With the edges of my teeth breaking off, I didn't really consider it a big deal. I no longer had insurance, no money, just looking to work as hard as I could to support my wife and kids, I put my dentist appointments and excessive costs at the bottom of the to-do list. Within a year my left back molar shattered while eating a piece of pizza crust. Another within six months of that. After four teeth broke and other developed serious cavities I went to the dentist and was told the following info: I need $16,000.00 of dental work. I need multiple crowns, root canals, bridges, partial bridges, and four implants. I was given a cleaning, x-rays, and a little sonic tooth cleaner to get in between my teeth which the dentist said were so tight inside my mouth, it was no wonder I couldn't floss. Hmmm.

I went home and tossed the complete and utter scheduled loss of income for the next two years in the trash. I was making 8 grand a year. How was I going to afford 16 grand of work?

I tried brushing and flossing. I used the sonic tooth cleaner, which got caught between my teeth and then broke off between my teeth, and I had to use a Gerber Gator knife to separate my teeth and get the damn tip out of my gums. Flossing would CUT the floss before I got the floss up and down one time. Even the dentists noticed this, but never explained what was doing it, or why. Turns out, between my teeth, cavities had formed and I couldn't brush, or floss. Impossible to get the brush in there. Impossible to floss because the edges of the enamel were like razors. My years of being out to sea for months at a time with no flouride, dental care, or tooth paste etc. and because of supply issues, had taken its toll. My teeth were royally screwed.

At a certain point, I made the conscious decision to not seek dental care. I would get dental implants. Full-uppers and lowers. A person I knew had it done and said it was awesome. My aunt had it done and my mom says she hated it. Said it was the worst thing she ever did. Knowing my aunt and her disposition towards pretty much everything, this is a glaring endorsement and I want to get the implants done more than ever. So, I started saving.

I own a small business. Not for nothing, I sink everything I have into it. Everything. But, I tried to save up for this. At the time I looked into it, these implants cost about $35,000 for the full set. That was my goal. After TEN YEARS of saving, I had $22,000. And then, Covid hit. By the end of covid, I was just happy to be alive. I wasn't thinking about bills, or my teeth, or anything other than, God I'm glad I'm still alive.

And then, the economy started going downward. Bills started going up. My landlord, in an effort to jump on the greed bandwagon, doubled our rent. My suppliers started calling to tell me all the shipments we never got during covid, well guess what? They're HERE! And it's time to pay up, or get kicked out. And so, I paid. I paid and I paid, and I paid some more. I got the ERC thing which took 6 months but damn are they thorough! I have never known my taxes inside and out as well as I do now! and when all that was done, I paid some more. I kept paying until my business banking account was at zero. I drained my secret stash and used my $22,000 to keep the lights on. I paid my suppliers so I could get the monthly shipments of stock, even though sales are down, because... when sales finally pick up, if I don't have anything to sell... how will I make money?

And I paid more.

I took the money out of my kids accounts (who are now adults and work with me) and promised to pay them back, and I have. They got paid back first. I didn't have it to pay back, but I made it work. I'm not going to be like every other person who has let me down in life and never repaid their debts to me. No way. I put my kids money back in their accounts, and then some. Slowly, I'm paying off my credit cards and trying to work my way out of the red. Back to black is where I need to be. Just grinding every day. Working seven days a week, seven to 11 hours a day, non-stop. No rest for the weary. But the one thing that will put me down is pain.

A week ago, one of the few teeth I still have in my mouth, started hurting. Now, I'm a pro at this. A pro at tooth loss. I'm like the Michael Jordan of at-home tooth removal. I call it bathroom dentistry. I took a look. It's one of my top four front teeth, or what used to be teeth. This one had broken off cleanly in the middle. Imagine cutting your tooth in half, leaving the bottom in your jaw, the top, just take it off. Poof. Gone. That is what it looks like. I don't honestly remember when it happened but I think it was during the Coke 400 prior to Junior's retirement and I got elbowed in the mouth at the race by someone in line at the concession stand, overly joyous at someone else taking the lead... He asked if I was alright and I said yeah, but I sit out half a tooth a minute later. I was okay. It hadn't hurt since then... Now, fast forward a number of years to last week, and it decides to start complaining.

"You never cared about me. I thought I was important! You needed me! And the second I stopped performing up to your standards, you just go and forget about me? Is that it? Huh? Huh?" I woke up with a throbbing in my gums. Fuck. I reached into my jeans pocket and grabbed the Orajel 4X Medicated and squirt a bit into my mouth and tuck my tongue up there to hold it in place like some chew addict who can't stop dipping even though his gums have receded to the point where you can see the roots of his teeth. I gotta stop right there. Seriously. I've seen that shit. There is no way. NONE. I'm a frigging baby when I get a little tooth ache and my gums are pretty fucking nice by the way. Pink and missing teeth like crazy but nowhere near the likes of what I've seen with people who dip, or use those little bandits. That shit should be illegal. You wanna chew tobacco, just chew the damn stuff and spit it all over. Stop tucking it in your cheeks. You're not a god-damned hamster! Okay, back to my story.

So, the Oragel works wonders, and in seconds I'm returned to slumberland and my mouth reminisces about how it feels like the first time we got novocaine and we couldn't feel our noses for a while and then we chomped our tongue and it hurt in the morning and all the while, it's stuffing a gag in my tooth's pie-hole and trying to wrap the duct tape really tight...

I get up, go to work. Normally, my go to is a good couple cups of coffee but that day, I decide...maybe water is in order. I drink some water. I'm being a nice guy, trying to get my tooth back on my side, keep em happy, or at least, pacify it so it doesn't call the cops the second I turn around. My tooth, in response, laughs. It says, "thanks for the water bro. Shoulda been doing this for the past couple years but noooo! You gotta drink coffee, and cherry squishies, and fucking Spooky Mountain Dew! Gimme more water. NOW!"

In fifteen minutes I go from a couple of sips to filling a half-gallon bucket with ice water and sipping it like it's Momma Dolce's mountain berry moonshine. I'm whimpering as the water heats up in my mouth and the stabbing pain returns EVERY MINUTE. I cock my head. Internally I'm saying, "okay fucker. We gonna do this? I'm not paying $175 and taking a day off work, to go get you pulled. You gonna keep this up? Or you gonna settle down?" My tooth says, "Gimme more water, show me some love, maybe a really-really good narcotic pain killer... I might settle down. Maybe." I'm like, "I got two extra strength Tylenol in my pocket, right now..." I sound like I'm trying to convince my niece to let me watch Netflix instead of Hanna Montana. "Mmmm, okay." I pop the tylenol, and religiously drink ice water until...finally...the pain ebbs.

I go home later on, vowing to adhere to my standard regimen of tooth-ache fighting arsenal. Tylenol, followed by Advil, followed by Tylenol, back and forth, the maximum dosage, the tightest of time constraints, every three hours, like a machine. Sleep? Who needs sleep. Delirium and drugs is all I need. Oragel. Oragel takes the edge off. My tooth is an addict and I'm the dealer. I'm holding my kidneys and liver hostage but my kidneys don't complain. I've drank more water in the past twenty-four hours than the first twenty-four years of my life. My kidneys are like, "nah, it's not a problem sir. Keep going. In fact, we've had a talk with the tooth. We're in agreement. You'll be drinking this much water until you die." Those mother fuckers! My liver is silent in all this, just watching the shit show I've become.

I wake up. I go to work. Rinse, repeat, return. Now, I'm hurting. I go to sleep, sticking to my regimen. Every time I turn my brain says, "Unlock the door with Tillamook! Tilamook for monkeys!" I can see a black box with a key hole that only "Tilamooklala" can unlock, but I only have Tilamook. Tilamook for monkeys. Tilamook for monkeys. It is the singular thought that pervades my mind. I cannot dream. I cannot think. I do not exist. Only Tilamook for monkeys exists. Only Tilamook for monkeys. Tilamook...for...monkeys.

I wake up covered in sweat. The A/C is running non-stop. It's a heat wave basically world wide. I haven't drained the A/C drain pipe in a week. I stagger to the kitchen... my tooth! My tooth is silent! I smile. I look out the kitchen window.

"REMEMBER ME FUCKER!" My tooth screams and I drop to my knees in the kitchen, clutching my face. "Yeah! Yeah you thought I forgot about you, huh? Well, you forgot about me all night? Where's my ice water, bitch!"

"Hereibbizz," I mumble as I fill my water cup with ice and water and take the first sip.

"That's right bitch," my tooth says and the pain numbs for a millisecond before springing back with a vengeance. "Gimme that ice water! ALL OF IT! NOW!"

I drink the whole cup. I refill the water. I drink. I refill, and hit the ice... the ice machine in the door whirrs, but no ice comes out. My eyes open wide.

"What's that?" My tooth asks.

"Nothing. No, no, uh, nothing sir. I just... have to go to the store... I'll take you with me so you can watch what I do," I say, but I never make it that far. I stumble back to the bedroom, grab the Tylenol and the Advil, and take both at the same time. My kidneys and liver will hate me for it. My pain endurance will thank me. I grab the Oragel and try to squirt it but there's something blocking the tip. I squeeze it hard, and it explodes into my mouth, filling the space under my rancid tooth with a paste reminiscent of toothpaste and baking soda that burns so bad...and my tooth screams at me one last time, and then goes silent.

I wake at 4. Take two Tylenol. Set the alarm.

I wake at 7. Take two Advil. Set the alarm.

I wake at 7:30....? My tooth sizzles. It's not speaking in my mind... it's actually making noise. The pain is a memory, or maybe drowned out by my kidneys' inability to filter out the pain killer anymore, but I doubt that. I stagger to the kitchen. I drink some water, just in case... My left nostril is clogged. I put a finger to it. Is my face puffy? I stagger to the bathroom. Oh fuck.

It's 7:45 at night, on a Sunday. Everyone else is at work. They've left me behind, a worthless, simpering, casualty of the war between my tooth and my will. I'm no good to them like this. I get on the computer, surrender, and schedule a teladoc appointment. The doctor looks at me as I slur words through a half swollen face and recount my war with my teeth. She tells me she's prescribing me an antibiotic and I need to take it soon. I'm grateful. I thank her. I call the troops. "I need my meds," I slur to them. They'll get it for me. An hour drive to find a 24-hour pharmacy and they're on their way back, armed with AMOXICILLIN. Is that a Roman Numeral? Yes. It's a new one. It tells time. What time is it? Time for my tooth to lose the war.

It's midnight when I open the stunted bottle to grab the first pill out and immediately, I'm like some porn-starlet blushing at how god's awful big that thing is. "Do they actually expect me to put that thing in my mouth?" I ask my propriety. "It's a god-damned horse pill!" I hold it up and show it to my wife. She smiles. She knows my history. I'm fucked. 1500mg Horse pills. How in the fuck....

I grab my mortar and pestle and grind.

A spoon full of sugar? No. No sugar. No more sugar.

Honey? Honey! I grab the honey, another item I've long had an aversion to because of an allergy to pollen... I don't care! HONEY is antibacterial, Anti-fungal, anti-pain. I mix the honey, Amoxicillin and I slurp it down. I wash it down with water. I go back to sleep, dreaming of Tilamook for monkeys until I wake the next afternoon, amazed I slept the night through, and I take another ground up pill...and another...and another... every twelve hours, like clock-work.

It's now Thursday, 2:47 a.m. I'm going to sleep. I hope you all enjoy the read. Mom, sorry if I hurt your feelings. I love you. Aunty, love ya. To all my readers and followers, please share my story, like, and recommend me to others if you like my writing. I'll be back on with some more fantastic stories of sci-fi and fantasy. I've got big things in the works, as long as I can keep going, keep my business running and hopefully get my implants one day. My dream is to get my books published and write for a living full time, have a healthy mouth and keep writing until the ideas elude the grasp of my consciousness.

Thank you all for reading, and good night.