Sometimes Euphemisms Are Good

I ain't much on sugar-coating things. We may do too much of that, like calling a terrorist a militant and things like that. But I think dentists should consider using euphemisms for their tools and procedures. When you are sitting in the chair fully awake and they ask for their tools it can come close to causing a panic. They need burs, drills, scalers, dams, retractors; to name a few. We got this old dentist who has figured that out. He has a name for each of his instruments. A bur is a Ben, a drill is a David, scaler is Sam, etc. He started all this when a man named Squimey Wallace jumped out of the chair and ran all the way home leaving his car in the parking lot. When he got home, all pale and out of breath, his wife asked what was wrong. Squimey said, "I just went in to get a cavity fixed up not to have the Panama Canal dug out in my mouth."

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle