If you aspire to utter freedom and have a vague premonition that all is not well with an upper molar, go first to your dentist. Do not think that you can escape from a dubious tooth. Though you take the wings of the airline express it will be there.
Abbie Graham in 1939 book,
Time Off and On
with her advice about vacations.
So well do I remember when Abbie's advice would have saved our long weekend vacation to the Iron Mountains, the purpose of which was to take state roads, not interstates, from Nashville to Laurel Bloomery in East Tennessee where we would visit the Iron Mountain Pottery.
Halfway there our five-year-old began suffering from tooth pain. We stopped at a drugstore and bought anything we thought might numb his gums and hurried on to the pottery, quickly picked out six glossy green bowls and headed for home, interstates all the way.
The next day our dentist pulled the abscessed tooth and put in a spacer to hold a place for the adult tooth that had not yet begun to show up.
I love these green bowls. They never go in the dishwasher.
But every time I use them I think of our little boy sitting in the backseat moaning with pain, a high price for some bowls.
Going on vacation? Have the least twinge of tooth pain?
Better see your dentist first!
