The Wisdom of My Teeth

Well I don't know if they're actually a wise lot, but they're there and there's too many of them. I've been needing them taken out for a long time. I guess I was sort of hoping that things back there would just sort themselves out? The thing about wisdom teeth is that I can't understand how nature could have created something that not only is unnecessary, but also causes problems such as wisdom teeth do. Since I tend to side with nature, I guess I didn't really believe the dentist when she said I was going to need to have them out. Perhaps I thought it was just something people with dental insurance did out of ignorance.

You know how they say that the pinky toe is unnecessary and in however many hundreds of years down the road Man will no longer have them? Well I don't really believe that we're not going to have them anymore because they're not in the way, but I can see how they are no longer needed. With wisdom teeth though, I can't figure it out. Mother Nature is pretty with it, so how could she have given humans something that would be in the way like this? And what did they do before oral surgeons?

For a while there were three things about the natural world that I couldn't figure out; one was the wisdom teeth thing, the other was the whole sunburning issue, and the last I just can't remember right now. I basically think nature is perfect in its own way, even if it doesn't make sense to us. I believe that aside from obvious genetic variations, each successful species is pretty much good to go with what it's given at birth. All we have to do is not interfere with nature. So it didn't make sense at first that the skin of humans would burn and cause deadly diseases. Now that I'm an adult I get the whole pollution/ozone layer connection and I see how we humans interfered to bring this about. I wish I could remember the last thing to better my argument, but I still don't understand why we have wisdom teeth. Maybe it's an omen; the mark of a species destined to fail.

And so it is that at 26 I must now have my wisdom teeth out. Like I said, it should have been done a few years back but there was always a good excuse: I was pregnant and then I was nursing forever, and then I got married and lost my good insurance in favor of a non-existent family dental plan. But today I finally made the appointment. I'll go for a consultation in a few weeks and they'll tell me if I need just two or all four out, along with an exact dollar amount which will be more money than I've probably seen at once in my life. And then March 27th will be the big day. You know what? I'm nervous, but more than that, I'm so excited for the vacation I'm going to have! I'm banking on at least two days off of child care/animal care duty and whatever kind of pain killers it is they give you when you get teeth pulled from you head.