Spring Break
Is that my teeth or a dead animal?
Eamonn Rockwell
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: Ed-Op
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I was in the bathroom the other day taking what was probably my fifteenth piss of the hour. After washing my hands like a responsible citizen, I looked up at the mirror to make sure there wasn't anyone standing behind me with a butcher's knife who was about to steal my precious skin in order to make a sequined tablecloth. Seeing that there was only someone behind me with a gun, who happened to be my roommate complaining about how I stuffed my dirty underwear into his pillow again, I decided to go back to my room. But before I did, I took another look at my mirror and checked to see how my teeth were holding up.
I brush, floss and rinse my mouth with Clorox every day like my dentist recommends, but I hadn't checked to see whether or not everything was going as smoothly in my mouth as they were in all my other parts of life. When I opened my mouth, I discovered something so shocking that I can only discuss it in another paragraph.
That paragraph is now! Upon looking at the visual horror that was the color of my teeth, I sank to my knees and wept, crying out "WHY!?" over and over, softer each time. While I did not expect my teeth to be a pristine white that can be seen for miles, I was unprepared when I saw what looked like salt-encrusted pirate gold stuck in my mouth. But instead of making me rich, this gold coloring was probably going to give me cancer.
A strange fear came over me, one that I had never felt before. I've covered Vietnam, Kosovo, numerous African genocides and even the opening of a strip mall in New Jersey, but while I may have a track-record devoid of wussy-ness, the sight in the mirror other than the usual sight of my face (which has been declared by experts as being "a vomit-inducing cross between a melted GWAR mask and a horrendous case of elephantitis") struck a fear into me that was all-consuming.
It was the kind of fear that movies have repeatedly tried and failed to instill in viewers that causes mass suicides, insanity or muteness. The kind of fear where the camera focuses in on the afflicted person's eyes and all you see is their pupils shrunken by an all-encompassing horror that forces the pupil to shrink rather than expand. That's the fear I experienced when I saw how yellow my teeth were.
I brush, floss and rinse my mouth with Clorox every day like my dentist recommends, but I hadn't checked to see whether or not everything was going as smoothly in my mouth as they were in all my other parts of life. When I opened my mouth, I discovered something so shocking that I can only discuss it in another paragraph.
That paragraph is now! Upon looking at the visual horror that was the color of my teeth, I sank to my knees and wept, crying out "WHY!?" over and over, softer each time. While I did not expect my teeth to be a pristine white that can be seen for miles, I was unprepared when I saw what looked like salt-encrusted pirate gold stuck in my mouth. But instead of making me rich, this gold coloring was probably going to give me cancer.
A strange fear came over me, one that I had never felt before. I've covered Vietnam, Kosovo, numerous African genocides and even the opening of a strip mall in New Jersey, but while I may have a track-record devoid of wussy-ness, the sight in the mirror other than the usual sight of my face (which has been declared by experts as being "a vomit-inducing cross between a melted GWAR mask and a horrendous case of elephantitis") struck a fear into me that was all-consuming.
It was the kind of fear that movies have repeatedly tried and failed to instill in viewers that causes mass suicides, insanity or muteness. The kind of fear where the camera focuses in on the afflicted person's eyes and all you see is their pupils shrunken by an all-encompassing horror that forces the pupil to shrink rather than expand. That's the fear I experienced when I saw how yellow my teeth were.
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