Knackered Waits to Pay with Benzos

   Hey there.  Knackered here. Tomorrow morning, Knackered heads back to the dentist.  He has to do it.  They’ve got one of his teeth and he wants it back.  

   Actually, it’s not a tooth.  It’s the shiny, new, personally molded,  gold crown that he’s paying nearly two K for.  That’s a lot of tooth money for Knackered to shell out.  

   Knackered does not have pretty, white teeth.  And they’re not properly aligned.  The only kids he knew who wore braces, also got to swim in the pool at the country club. 

   He supposes he could get them whitened up, but the thought of putting anything ‘bleachy’ in his mouth reminds him of the time the past President advised people to drink the stuff to prevent Covid. He doubts that worked out well for anybody.  

   The dentist’s office has seen a lot of change in the last few years. The people are all different and the receptionist reminds him of the troll under the bridge. 

   She’s always ‘glammed up’ and wears trendy stuff, but the resemblance to anything human stops right there.  She controls not only who gets in and out, but she makes sure they damn well pay up in the process.

   With all the new assistants and people with their hands out, they have undoubtedly started hemorrhaging money.  It’s not Knackered’s fault.  He bought the new ‘in house’ insurance packet.  He took them all his teeth and let them use the little saw tool the dentist loves to jackhammer away with inside his mouth.

   You can’t enter without being told how much you owe, and you can’t get out without paying so. Knackered had just staggered out of the chair last time before there she was with her hand out.

  Maybe that new ultraviolet sonar cleaner thingie cost too much. Whatever.  Knackered didn’t make it happen.  Maybe they all bought new cars this year?  

   No matter what happened, they put some cheap tin junk over the hole they drilled on his molar last time and tried to send him home like that. To add insult to injury, when he tried to leave, the fashionista of finance used her extended arm to block his way.  

   She snapped her fingers asking for payment.  With a mouth ‘full of marbles’, Knackered asked, “Fow wot?” She responded that he needed to remit payment for half the procedure.  

   By this time, the decent side of Knackered had left the building .  “Hof dun, no muny; oll dun, oll pade.” Her reply let him know that he’d have to take it up with the Dr.

   Knackered smiled as he looked up to take in the doctor, driving by in his new car, no doubt on his way to a power luncheon with the Rotary Club.  He wondered if the man was making his payments with his patients’ partial payments.  Of course he was.