18-09-24 -

Because of the shifting nature of my dental geography, I have to floss after eating anything, not just a meal - at least between upper right molars #3 and 4. Think that's counting right. I still have my wisdom teeth so including it. Only had to do this starting earlier this year. My teeth remind me of  slowly moving glaciers, calving glacier chunks falling into the sea. There have been bits broken off  here and there through the years - the largest and dumbest one the result of a habit of opening beer bottles with my teeth. At this particular spot, the lost bit created a hollow where tidbits inevitably nestle and bother me so I need to attend to them. 

Just below that between molars #29 and 30, there's another interesting phenomena. Sometimes the teeth there are too close to get floss in. My teeth have tended to be pretty close together and I've got to floss with Glide or some brand that slides in the narrowness as well. Found some in Germany that worked. When 29 and 30 are closed I'll break the floss before it goes in. But it's not always that close. It will be like that for a while then one day the floss slips in easily and that tends to continue for a while till it closes up again.

I like to floss. A lot of people don't and seek out other options. My sister asked a dental hygienist years ago if she had to floss and got the reply, "No, only the teeth you want to keep." Of course that depends on the person but I think I the odds are with you if you floss. Good for your breath too.

I had to have a tooth pulled about eight to ten years ago - upper left molar, #15. That's left a gap that presents no problem. When it was being broken up and pulled, it felt like my whole upper jaw was going to go with it. 

Lost most of a front tooth in 1986 working on the newly purchased by ZC Muir Beach house, the one where Mayumi, Peter and Wendy, lived live. Was pulling a nail out from a header and it wouldn't come so I hung on to it with the claw of a hammer and it came out with force right into my mouth. I immediately felt like an idiot, just like when I was biting off that bottle cap. So I've got a different type of cap there on #8 upper. There was plenty for it to tie into because I had two teeth at that spot - sort of - because #8 and 9 have little fangs in back. And now the biggest one is covered up with the cap which it helped to anchor. I miss it. Driving back from getting that cap I picked up a hitchhiker who was coming from another dentist's office and who had to have all his front teeth capped or something. We shared our stories. He was a gym instructor who was demonstrating lifting a heavy bar bell from prone position. Two others were there to help lift it off when he was done. There was a crash outside and everyone ran to the window to see. Must have been interesting. He could hold no longer and couldn't vocalize so slowly let the bar bell down and it crushed his upper front teeth #22-27.