Your Mileage May Vary

I went to the dentist on Friday the 13th for a routine check-up and cleaning. The appointment went well– my teeth are healthy and clean. The superstitions of the day didn’t hold any weight, but it was a remarkable visit in one way: my dental hygienist was probably high on marijuana.

I can’t confirm this. I didn’t notice blood-shot eyes or smell anything strange on the woman, but she did mention smoking pot no less than five times in the course of my appointment. Not once did she suggest that I’m a user either– every reference to the illicit substance was self-directed. She said things like, “If I had to work around that many screaming children, I’d probably be going home to smoke chronic every day,” and, “If I could retire with that much money, I’d build a greenhouse to grow my own pot.” Unfortunately, most of what she said was drowned out by the scraping sound inside my skull.

Aside from references to marijuana, she also kept up a line of conversation that was somewhat surreal. She told me stories about people who use Clorox bleach to whiten their teeth, described what meth mouth looks like, and expressed an interest in checking out the local hookah bar. At one point she even said, “W-T-F?”

She’s a quirky lady to begin with– Friday even more so.

Maybe she wasn’t high. Maybe she just had too much coffee. Or maybe she was fishing for a dealer.

From Man Without a Country (2005) by Kurt Vonnegut:

Do you know what a humanist is?

My parents and grandparents were humanists, what used to be called Free Thinkers. So as a humanist I am honoring my ancestors, which the Bible says is a good thing to do. We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. My brother and sister didn’t think there was one, my parents and grandparents didn’t think there was one. It was enough that they were alive. We humanists serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, “Isaac is up in heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.

How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, “If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?”

But if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being.

I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.

Here’s a documentary on the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8