The Bad Seed

For days my wife had been complaining about an irritation on her gum line. She was certain it was a remnant of the delicious corned beef sandwich we shared a few days ago.

You know how corned beef can melt in your mouth, to say nothing of getting clogged between your teeth. Yet we still indulge. Wonderful on rye with mustard. Death to those who corrupt corned beef with mayonnaise! On white bread, yet.

But I digress. Back to the painful back tooth. After days of dithering, she finally called our dentist. He could see her in two days. She didn't think it was an emergency so she agreed to wait.

Today was the day. He examined her mouth and extracted a tiny object that had scrunched down just below the gum line and against a back molar. The corned beef was exonerated. The object was a tomato seed. He asked if she'd like to keep it. She declined.

How much did removing this potato seed cost us, I asked? $62, she said.

I would have framed it. At those prices it qualifies as art.

Borrowing a title from novelist William March, I would have named it “The Bad Seed.”