Get America Moving Again! Get a Root Canal!

This may be a short version because I need to get this week’s draft of Thoughts for the Week to Elizabeth in Caldwell’s Toronto office by the close of business on Thursday, as Good Friday is a national holiday in Canada. 

That Canadians recognize Good Friday as a holiday is just another example of the innate goodness and wisdom of the Canadian people. Hey Canada, I think you are just showing off, when you allow Canadian federal employees to take off Easter Monday as a holiday also!

(Note to John Wallace, CEO of Caldwell Partners: My grandmother, the late Zella Belvedere Hill Brooks, was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Can I take off Good Friday? How about Easter Monday?) 

Meanwhile, here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., we have a national holiday in October celebrating a murderous, brutal Spaniard named Christopher Columbus. When Wrongway Chris’s ships happened to run aground in the Bahamas in October of 1492, Columbus thought he had discovered the illusive western passage to India. Hence, he started to call the indigenous people in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti “Indians” (get it?). Columbus thought it was only proper that he captured indigenous people as slaves before he sent them as human chattel to Spain.

Perhaps I should research the reasons why Americans celebrate a brutal enslaver of indigenous people who not once set foot on the terra firma we know now as the United States of America, but I can’t, as I’ve got to get this edition of “Thoughts for the Week” to Elizabeth before the close of business on Thursday afternoon, so she can celebrate Good Friday!

Something like this could, I repeat, could, lead to a whole separate screed by me titled “That Which We Celebrate”, but I will save that screed for another time, when I am not under a deadline, and I am not about to head to an endodontist for a root canal procedure in an hour.

This is actually the second phase of a three stage procedure that has something to do with a root canal that has gone wrong.

I am trying to look on the bright side of things, and that bright side is this:

I, Rich Perkey - son, brother, headhunter, friend, husband, father, writer, and frustrated athlete - will singlehandedly enable the American economy to achieve 10% growth in its Gross Domestic Product, just by having this one dental procedure done!

Dr. Drill, the endodontist who is performing this procedure, talks like he is a good person, and expresses great empathy for my plight, but I am a bit weary of him. I have never really seen him. Dr. Drill is outfitted by the haberdasher to “Seal Team 6”, the Navy special forces unit who rid Osama bin Laden of all of his dental problems. I have elected to nickname this endodontist “Dr. Drill” not just because he drills into my tooth, but because of his ability to penetrate deep into my bank account and extract all its contents. I think that Dr. Drill hides behind all his disguises in order to hide his true identity.

I have to get this article done before I sit down in Dr. Drill’s endodontist chair. Dr. Drill will kick things off by giving me three shots of a pain killer before he starts drilling into my tooth. I anticipate he is going to say something to the effect of, “You will feel something that feels like a little pinprick.” I hate to tell you, Dr. Drill, I typically avoid taking three needles and sticking them into my gums. How in the heck am I supposed to know what “a little pinprick” is supposed to feel like?

I anticipate that I will make it through this procedure okay, but if for some reason things go terribly wrong and I don’t make it out of this procedure, I will leave you knowing that I have finished my “Thoughts for the Week of April 9, 2023”.

Whatever happens to me, I hope you have a wonderful Passover, a glorious Easter, and a Good Friday.

And for all you Canadian government workers, think of me on Monday as I strive to solve all the searches on my plate!