Nutrition is a more dismal science than economics. I have written about this many times before, but it keeps presenting itself for more mistreatment. Since I have set limits for myself about writing about politics and my topics have become more limited, I seem to keep unavoidably writing about the same ones. I don’t know what to do about this, and politics being what it is today, which is not any different than it ever was though it seems so since now is now and then is then, I don’t know how much longer I can keep off the politics. It may not be possible. But let me share this with you…well, I am saying share with you, it is really more of my need to get it off my chest than it is for your benefit. You might say rather than share it with you, I am inflicting it on you. You are free to hit the back button and return to where you came from. I am taking no hostages here.

There are more conflicting opinions about nutrition and the wonders and dangers thereof than there are people to hold them. Many acquaintances who have peculiar notions about nutrition seem to hold conflicting opinions in their own heads, which is something I find remarkable. Everything one eats is laden with poison, or not, as the current whim of nutrition shamanistic science dictates. I will not go into all of it here; you can do your own “research.” Don’t fool yourself into thinking you know more than you understand, though. Using the ubiquitous Google is what passes for research among many nowadays, and while useful, it can turn up far more garbage than it can legitimate information and some can’t tell the garbage from the trash, much less the pearls. Usually folks click only on the links that support their preconceived notions. At least, that’s what I like to do. What about you?

Food and nutrition choices are as varied and as fickle winds at the eternal summer of the equator. They may blow or not. When they do blow, they may blow harder than they can be useful. And there are as many personal, subjective preferences as there are options on those choices…and there are thousands of folks telling us what we should be eating and what we should be liking. According to someone else, every one of our choices are wrong, poorly made, and ignorantly consumed, no matter what they are, culture and tastes notwithstanding. No doubt, you are making poor choices. I, on the other hand, am making wise ones since mine are all supported by research. Your research is incomplete, flawed, and lacks any cogent methodology. I can prove it, too.

Take me for instance. When it comes to cheeses, or at least to cheese resembling products, I prefer Velveeta to everything else, which makes it superior simply because I like it. A delicious slice or two of pasteurized processed cheese-esque Velveeta is much more desirable than an expensive stinky European cheese. After all, they call it American cheese and I am an American, so what’s not to like? Go ahead and admit it; some melted American cheese mixed in with some Rotel spicy tomatoes and covering a salty tortilla chip is pretty good, isn’t it? Never mind that it is sodium and preservative laden, infused with GMO corn and HGH laced milk by-products with BPA leached tomato can lining; don’t stop to think about it. Just put it in your mouth. Isn’t it good? I thought so. Now, whether it is good for you is another matter entirely. There are a thousand reasons why one should not eat this, but not a single one of them pertains to flavor or the pleasure of its consumption. Nibbling dry chickpeas would be much more healthy, but not nearly so good. I have the research to back all this up.

“I haven’t seen Childeric around lately. What’s become of him?” Clovis, the current chief of the Retired Merovingian Kings Union Local 417, asked Dagobert.

“He became addicted to American cheese dip,” said Dagobert. “It finally poisoned him.”

“I thought it was Theuderic that poisoned him,” said Clovis.

“Yes, it was,” replied Dagobert. “But he poisoned him with American cheese and one of those awful, sweet Kosher wines. Manischevitz, I seem to recall. The combination is always fatal to us Franks. Either one is poison enough, but the combination is is disastrous to the Frankish palette, which is far more refined than common folk elsewhere have.”

“Childeric was always making unhealthy choices about what he ate. He seemed to eschew the salt mutton, going straight for that flavorless New-World cheese substitute, rather than the delicious Camembert fromage produced right here in our beloved Gaul. Too bad,” mused Clovis as he gazed off into the distance, thinking rather fondly of his former rival and cousin. “So, when did he die?”

Dagobert looked at him curiously. “He’s not dead. It’s worse…much worse. He became a Republican-Libertarian, joined the Rotary club, and took a seat on the board of Kraft Foods.”

Clovis emitted a loud gasp, shook his head, and burst into tears. “Such shame he has brought down on our warrior/kingly class. We must rescue him from his own folly.”

“There has been talk of that,” said Dagobert, “And as soon as we can book passage on a steamer to this so called “New World” we are going to see if we can persuade him to come back. I fear, though, that the poison has weakened his mind. He may be lost to us forever.”

He sliced off a piece of roqueforte and offered it to Clovis. Clovis shook his head. Dagobert sniffed it, then threw it on the floor and a rat ran up, also sniffed it, turned its head away and scurried off, back to the Velveeta it had stashed in its nest. Of course, rats don’t know the difference between fine Frankish cheeses and inferior American processed cheese-like products, but they do know what they like. You can’t expect rats to understand culture. Rats even eat poison and seem to like it. Some even thrive on it.

Not that any of the above has anything to do with what I am preparing to tell you, for what I am about to impart is far more serious, dangerous, and even deadly than mere nutrition, Merovingian treachery, the superlative nature of French cheeses, or base rat poison. What I am about to tell you is something that interferes with nutrition, which, notwithstanding some terrible drought or other pestilence, or even a plague of locusts, which may create havoc with all aspects of nutrition since there is no food; no, this is not about something so simple and natural as famine or pestilence. This is about the greed induced man-made treachery known as the root-canal, performed in these modern times by the sorcerers and reprobates known to us as endodontists. The inerrant internet is full of stories.

For the heinous crimes their nefarious brood commit against humanity, they are handsomely rewarded, as if the devil’s larder was opened to them and they are afforded protections from heavenly justice by their unseemly connections to Republicans and Capitalists. Endodontists, unknown to the uninitiated, are the purveyors of everything evil in modern human health.

In former times, regular old Dentists were associated with barbers, surgeons, pedicurists, tarot readers, tax collectors, and pawn shop proprietors. Nowadays, they attend graduate dental schools and earn degrees that allow them to insert the letters DDS or DMD after their names. Some of them are accepted into residency programs and become honorable specialists, such as Periodontists and Pediatric Dentists. Then there is the vilification-worthy and dreaded Endodontist, the one who specializes in something even Danté could not find a place for in all his levels of hell…the root-canal. The fact that neither Danté nor the bible make the slightest mention of the root-canal is evidence plain enough of its utter evil.

The reason I say this is that someone posted a link on the internet to an article decrying the malevolent effects of the root canal. This article said that cancer, heart disease, mental illness, renal failure, pancreatitis, all auto-immune diseases, strokes, kidney stones, COPD, obesity, excessive flatulence, halitosis, impotence, and male pattern baldness are all caused by root-canals. In fact, the article went on to cite several peer-reviewed appearing journals that stated that despite the best efforts of modern science, every person who ever had a root-canal was destined for the grave, some earlier, some later, but all bound for it as surely as the toothache was relieved by the removal of the inflamed nerve. This, of course, is to be avoided at all cost. Better to die from a severe toothache than any of the above causes. Let’s face the facts as they are, like mature adults; if you have ever had a root-canal, you are destined for the grave.

I decided that since incontrovertible internet evidence had proven Endodontistry such a vicious evil, with the aforementioned peer-reviewed research and all, those peers being experts in the untaintable multi-level marketing nutritional supplement field, there must by necessity be an emerging dental specialty of Disendodontristry. It makes sense to me. It should make sense to you, too, but I’m not completely sure I can vouch for you.

I looked in the phone book. It took me hours to find one, since no one publishes a phone book anymore, and the one I actually found was dated 1978, long before the Disendodontistry specialty could have possibly been subdivided from Endodontistry, so it was no use, though I did manage to see the names of several deceased acquaintances I was convinced had died from poisonous root-canals. I eventually lost track of my purpose, perusing the phone book with intensity. There was the name of a disco I had detested, long since out of business. Another place had the name of a cemetery that had gone out of business. I have no idea of what may have happened to its former tenants, though they no doubt voiced few complaints. It is likely that every one of them had had a root-canal.

“Cleveland, S. Grover,” I read and said aloud to myself, recalling him fondly with a shake of my head. “Old Grover…gone. Killed by a root-canal.” I surmised at how his actual cause of death had not been covered by the media, and thought of the irony that his face adorned the thousand dollar bill, which was about the same price as the root-canal that ultimately killed him. Well, it may not have been an actual root-canal, but it was reported to the media that bad teeth were the cause of his oral surgery which removed part of his hard palette which was replaced by a a crude rubber prosthesis. Oral cancer aside, it is plain for the observant that he had had a secret root-canal, thus, his fatal cancer. This was conspiratorially withheld from the media. “Grover, Grover…,” I thought to myself. “Had he only known then what we know now, he’d likely still be with us.” But Grover is as out of circulation as the thousand dollar bill now, no doubt because of the evils of the root-canal.

Suddenly I was reminded of my purpose. I ditched the 1978 phone book and began to use that modern tool of expert research, Google. The sum of all mankind’s knowledge is just a mouse click away, well, maybe two or three mouse clicks away to get one past the supported content. I searched on “disendodontist.” I found nothing. That must have been an unintentional error of Google, because with the new information at hand, surely this was a rapidly emerging field. I tried, then, to search on “endodontist.” Thousands of listings came up. There were listings for Endodontists from New Guinea to New Brunswick with many of them offering discount root canals which I thought appropriate, since if one was going to poison one’s self one might as well do it at a discounted price rather than at full retail. I saw several that promised root-canals for half a Grover Cleveland, but reading the fine print, they were not legitimate offers, just bait-and-switch, since more than a few offered to leave out the anesthesia in order to get the discounted price. Painless root-canals were rather more expensive. The cheapest I could find was from a paint and body shop in central Alabama, open for business 24 hours a day. Their ad had a photo of their endodontic tools which were a pneumatic chisel and die grinder, and of the medium of their general anesthesia which was a four-pound hand mall. I think what they lacked in finesse they made up for with enthusiasm and thrift, as this Earl Schieb variety of root-canal was only $99.95, though they came in only a limited choice of pastel colors. I thought of the thrift. I thought of the pain. I painfully thought of the pastel colors. One must counterbalance the benefits and drawbacks. There were many and several, the least of which was the ultimately fatal nature of a root-canal.

There I was, sucked up into the sphere of root-canalism when it was not a root-canal I needed, but the urgent reversal of a one. This is how one becomes ensnared. Any slip of the mind and one is quickly lured to the dark side.

Since there was no such thing as a disendodontist that I could locate, I thought that a regular endodontist might be able to help me find one, never for once in my naiveté thinking that there might be a conspiracy. I just assumed any medical professional would be helpful. It was not so.

I found the number for Strychnine Endodontics, PLLC. I called them up.

“Strychnine Endodontics,” the pleasant voice on the other end of the phone answered.

“Is Dr. Strychnine in” I asked.

“Yes, but he is with a patient. How may I help you?” she asked. She seemed so nice at first, but I was soon going to see a different side of her just as soon as she was able to discern that I knew all about the international endodontic conspiracy.

“Well, I really need to speak with him,” I said.

“Are you one of our patients, sir?” She asked, still polite but beginning to be a bit suspicious, as if I might be a pesky investment adviser or penny-stock broker. At this point she had no idea that I was inquiring about serious dental practice and ethics.

“Oh! No! I am most certainly not a patient. In fact I am what you might call a counter-patient. An anti-patient. A reverse patient, even. You see, I do not need a root-canal. I need to get a prior root-canal reversed,” I said.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could hear a hand covering the microphone on the handset and some muffled conversation, and, I noted to myself, something that sounded a lot like suppressed laughter. I was offended.
“Sir. There is no way to undo a root-canal. If you are having pain, or an abscess, or have been referred to us by your regular dentist, then I’ll be glad to make you an appointment to see Dr. Strychnine, but he cannot undo a root-canal once it’s been done. There is nothing left to undo. You can’t put the nerve back,” she said.

“Are you the professional or are you one of his assistants?” I asked.

“I am an assistant, but I can assure you that a root-canal reversal is not possible.”

“Any just why not? They do vasectomy reversals all the time. They do breast implant reversals. I even once knew a man who had his gall bladder reinstalled after he failed to pay his hospital bill. Surely a simple root-canal can be reversed. Put Dr. Strychnine on the phone. If he is not capable of doing such a simple procedure, perhaps he’ll be able recommend someone who can.”

She hung up on me. I called right back. As soon as she heard my voice, she hung up on me again. I called back, again. This time, she stayed on the phone, but she remained silent. “Please have Dr. Strychnine call me. I am in dire straits,” I said. She took my number. I doubted I’d hear from Dr. Strychnine, but he was my best hope at the moment. While I waited for his call, I did some more research and found several internet forums dedicated to the dangers of the root-canal. It even turns out that malaria, bubonic plague, and canine heart worms are caused by root-canals. If you have ever had a root-canal, or even stood next to one, your pets might be in grave danger. It was too much to consider for a sane person. I had had two of them. They, no doubt, are killing me with every breath, every peck of the keys on this keyboard, each one bringing me towards my final one.

I never did get that call from Dr. Strychnine, but as I said, I did not really expect to. What incentive could he possibly have had to betray the international cabal of which he was a member, collecting his Grover Clevelands as fast as he could hand drill out the nerve of your tooth right out of your jaw? Of course, folks sought him out when they had the nearly unbearable pain of an abscess, but that was really nothing compared to what would be inflicted on the unwary patient, trading mere unbearable pain for the grave. I have considered the fact that the abscess might be so painful that one might prefer the grave to its continuation, but a root-canal is not an acceptable alternative. An ardent stoicism is called for. That kind of stoicism is rather rare these days. We have grown soft in our modernity.

I happened to be checking my e-mails the other day when I decided to actually look inside my spam filter. There among the useless e-mails was the one I had been looking for: the one that advertised a product promising, even guaranteeing, a complete youthful restoration. It was called Youth-Attain®. Since I had my first root-canal in my early thirties, I sincerely doubted I could be restored to any earlier age, but I could easily settle for an early-thirty restoration simply by using Youth-Attain®. I mused about how I was in my early thirties, my pre-root-canal days. I could live with that. Youth-Attain® was going to be my life-saver.

Of course, there was fine print, but there is always fine print, even on the forms you have to sign in the Endodontist’s office. I decided to ignore the fine print in favor of the prominently featured claim that the first 30 day supply of this remarkable product was absolutely free: just pay shipping and handling. Youthful restoration for free, just with shipping and handling, was more than I could stand.

I ordered three each of the free thirty day orders. They didn’t seem to mind. Youth-Attain®’s management was so agreeable that it seemed that one could get it free for the rest of eternity if one would simply pay the shipping and handling. When first order of Youth-Attain® arrived, I thought about taking it all at once but decided that it might send me back to being a toddler, even having the state possibly revoke my driver’s license. I wanted to be young again, but not that young, as there are some things we adults have grown accustomed to that toddlers just can’t fully appreciate. There is no doubt in my mind that the poisonous effects of my former root-canals are gone now, and any day I expect my teeth to regrow as the nerves are restored and push the crowns right off. I have noticed a couple of fillings fall out, no doubt caused by tooth regrowth and regeneration.

Since apparently nothing is required to be a disendodontist, since there is no such thing, and I have to touch no one, nor do anything, I am thinking of opening an office. The only thing I will actually be doing is selling Youth-Attain® and recruiting others to sell it for me, but the benefits to me and all of mankind will be plainly evident. I think world peace may finally be on the horizon. Maybe I can work up a humanitarian trip to Gaza or the newly minted ISIS and recruit some distributors there. My Youth-Attain® license allows me to cover the entire earth, though it offers me no exclusivity. Eventually, as my recruits recruit recruits, everyone on earth will be a Youth-Attain® distributor anyway, and I am in on the ground floor.

To that end, I am thankful I got a root-canal, thankful I found out about the international conspiracy of Endodontists, and thankful that my health has been permanently restored for free shipping and handling. I will be a healthy thirty-something multi-millionaire before you know it.

They might even put my photo on the thousand dollar bill. Sorry, Grover. If you had only known then what I know now. Thank goodness for Al Gore’s internet. Without it, I’d still be locked away in my own superstition and misery, waiting for a hole in the ground to claim me.

Next week, I will discuss the ease of substituting Rat-B-Gone® (warfarin sodium plus inert ingredients) for the far more expensive coumadin (warfarin sodium plus inert ingredients). I will of necessity have to put in a few asterisks since by law I a not qualified to offer medical advice, but I suspect that one four-tray package of Rat-B-Gone® has a lifetime medical amount of coumadin in it. If you need a blood thinner, why not just substitute rat poison and save a lot of money?

Just remember, when your dentist feels the necessity to refer you to an endodontist, that poisonous pitfalls await. You could choose instead to become a Youth-Attain® distributor and eliminate the need for dentists, doctors, hospitals, insurance, funeral homes, chiropractors, grocery stores, and even endodontists. Especially endodontists. If you don’t believe me, do your own research.

Pretty soon you will have peered enough to publish your own peer-reviewed journal. Then you and your peers can review each other, all for mere shipping and handling.

PS…An abscessed tooth or a kidney stone may have precipitated the origin of the phrase, “Just shoot me!”

©2014 Mississippi Chris Sharp