Mario Saves My House (and I may now smile again)

Another fire dream. I'd better really start taking these to heart. I'm racking up quite a collection. This one was brief, but to the point:

It was a warm summer morning, and I was in outside on my front porch, gazing out towards the south, lazily observing the flight of birds across the sky, thinking of nothing in particular. I had a lovely view of Payne's Peak, the minuscule mountain where my internet comes from, rising up out of the canopy of oaks and digger pine that fill the small valley. The treetops were all green, but beneath them, the grass was dead and orange, typical for this time of year.

From just beyond the peak, I noticed a faint wisp of smoke rising up, creating the steamy aura of a piping hot meatloaf, fresh from the oven. I rubbed my eyes, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. A second look confirmed my deepest fears. Little orange spots were showing up on the top of the peak, and it in a matter of seconds all of these incendiary dots connected, forming a giant blaze that covered the entire mountainside. 

"FIRE!!!" I screamed. "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" 

I poked my head into each room of my house shouting my warning to no one in particular. I don't know if I had houseguests or not, but it was imperative that I made sure the message got out. I ran outside, screaming loud enough to alert the entire neighborhood. I was going to get the jump on this situation. There was no wind, and it didn't appear that the fire was moving particularly quickly at that very moment, still the urgency remained.

I spotted former cult member Mario Huante in my front yard. He was running a network of garden hoses, setting up sprinklers and aiming them at my house. I had a moment's relief as a light breeze started blowing the fire and smoke away from us, to the south. Suddenly, the wind began to shift, and now the fire was racing across the tiny valley that separated us from the fully engulfed mountain. It would be upon us in minutes. 

The wind picked up, and soon embers were flying past us, above the rooftops and starting small fires in the dry grass that lines the periphery of my property. A wall of flames was approaching from south, eating up huge swaths of real estate along Loma Rica Road and eliminating any chance of escape. There was now no way out except on foot, and the fire was moving far to fast for that. 

"We're going to have to ride it out," I told Mario. "Let's get the animals into the house."

I don't know why I thought that inside a wooden structure would be any safer, but Mario had done a pretty good job of wetting down the roof, and my house does have a small defensible space of mowed green grass surrounding it. We dodged the sprinklers and piled into the house, which was dripping wet from the prophylactic soaking.

Inside the house, Mario's menagerie of hybrid farm animals made a ruckus as they rooted about in my living room. There were pig-donkeys and goat-pigs and donkey-goats all running around squealing, braying and bucking, slipping and sliding and leaving muddy hoof marks on the tile floor. I wasn't so worried about all of that, although I did have to grab one pig-donkey-goat by the leg to prevent him from kicking me in the face.

I looked out the front window and noticed that the sky was clear again. The giant wall of flames had evaporated, and the fire had raced past us. The fiery angel of death had passed over us spared our house and our little ark full of oddities. 

"Look!" I cried joyously, "We've been spared! The threat has gone!"

"Hallelujah!" Mario exulted. "God is good."

I didn't know about all that. It was actually Mario's quick thinking with the sprinklers and garden hoses that did the saving. Simple physics, combustion properties and fire dynamics. But if it walked and talked like a miracle, I wasn't going to dispute it.

"Now, about these animals in my living room..." I said, gently herding them out the front door with celebratory slaps on the flanks. A few remained, choosing to make a new home with my cats on the couch. I guessed they could stay, if they behaved themselves.

----

Meanwhile, in the real world, I may now find myself one smiling motherfucker, as Marcellus would say. For months, I have been mourning the slow death of my pearly whites, having lost the battle (or so I thought) to enamel erosion. My teeth were looking like candy corns, stained at the tips, as if I'd been sipping wood stain from a teacup. No amount of brushing, flossing or Waterpic use could remove the tarnish. I even tried that 5 minute teeth whitening gel, leaving it on for the maximum of 20 minutes, twice a day, for weeks at a time. Nothing. 

I had resigned myself to the idea that I'd just go to my grave a tight lipped, grimacing ogre, never smiling for pictures, timidly hiding my teeth in conversations. It was destroying any hope I had for the illusion of a happy, smiling me. I contemplated implants, veneers, false teeth -- but since those all involve going to the dentist, I assigned them to the category of "things to procrastinate, hopefully until after death."  

Last night, after brushing my teeth, I noticed that the toothbrush had done an incomplete job of cleaning between my teeth. That's nothing new. I've been achieving less and less satisfactory results, despite all of the above mentioned rituals. I'd been brushing twice a day, and things just seemed to be getting worse. 

But this particular bit of plaque looked fresh, and I decided to poke at it with a sewing needle. It scraped off easily. I ran the needle over the stained bottom tips of my four front teeth, the ones I used to do my smiling with. Slowly, but surely, I noticed that I could etch off the rough surface staining and reveal the smooth enamel underneath. In a matter of minutes, I had brought back the front surface of my choppers to a uniform color. No more tobacco colored sunburst. 

OMFG! This was amazing. Why hadn't I thought of this before? I finished up with the needle, just on the outside of my upper front teeth, and they felt smooth again. This wasn't erosion, it was simply hardened plaque. 

I went online and ordered a proper dental scaler, you know those curved picks that the professionals use to gently (or not so gently) scrape the plaque from your teeth. I will be glad to have this instrument in my arsenal, being mindful not to scrape too hard, as one can easily go past the plaque and into the actual tooth enamel if one isn't careful. 

But even now, waking up to teeth that don't look like a homeless tobacco chewer, even if it's just the fronts of the fronts, is like a dream come true. I think I'll smile at inappropriate times, just because I can, maybe even take a selfie or two. Yay, me. 

Who knows, I may even subject myself to a long overdue visit to the dentist for a proper cleaning, something I've avoided for most of my adult life. The last time I went was 2015 for an extraction. I said maybe. Baby steps.