On the Radio

I woke up to NPR on the clock radio. As I moved up, the story I heard was about the US Army finding a depot of missiles, grenades and suicide belts. A suicide belt is a belt that has explosives around the waist that are triggered when the suicide bomber raises both arms above his head. They reported that one belt was found to have blood on it. The supposition is that an Iraqi insurgent was shot while wearing the belt, so he returned to the depot, discarded the belt and I assume went to go get help.

Later I thought who could this person be? This man, who when shot and bleeding, felt that it was not the time to blow up. What did his friends say? Did they taunt him for not having resolve, or did they try to console him with statements like, "There was no way you were getting close enough to that Hum V, it wasn’t worth the try" or " They would have blown you up, long before you got close.”
I was thinking these things when flossing my teeth. I had moved to the bathroom to begin the hygiene routine.

Flossing can change your life, and at this stage, when I feel like I am loosing all sense of control over mine, flossing has grown in significance and stature in my world. It is more than just a noble activity; it is a solitary process with obstacles and rewards built in. Like rock climbing. Flossing has tools, styles and methods. I use Original Glide Floss - 50m from W.L. Gore & Associates from Flagstaff, Arizona. It has a smooth waxing surface that slips easily between the hooks of my teeth. Most would laugh at this amateur product, made for trainees. The real pros I guess use thick round tough garroting wire.

What made me have these thoughts was the hole in my back upper left wisdom tooth. I had been told by my dentist and her fellow assistants that I was “losing bone.” To this day, I do not know what “losing bone” means, but she planted the idea that my wisdom teeth, which had given me only minor trouble for 35 years, had to go. To bad for her, it was another dentist that did the work, but all the while I was losing bone, so I began an assault on decay. With electric brush and miles of floss. I won’t lie and say I have been doing this all my life, only after I got an office job where I sat in a real office cubicle, doing real office things did I start paying significant morning time on these bits of bone. I have a set program like most people. I hit all four back corners for they are the most fruitful raising my arms and shoulders up as I reach to the back of my mouth. More like lunging. Then in between the canines, then past canine back to the back of my mouth starting the cycle over again. For the second round can be as bountiful as the first.

When I was younger I dreaded flossing because of the blood. The copious amounts of blood that would show vividly on the white porcelain. Each spit a slash of red. It was shameful. With each sporadic attempt I would literally cringe at the idea of someone walking in, of someone seeing the sink full of blood. I was reminded of this shame, as the radio description replayed in my head. “…Marines found blood on the suicide belts in a warehouse siege today…” I thought of a certain kind of belt. Like the UN peacekeepers wore in the movies in the 1950’s. They are white with a shoulder strap and large box like pouches along the sides, that I guess held ammunition. I see them in my head, made of white leather, shiny, bright and polished. With a splash of red and a man running away, cringing from pain, or shame.