Have you flossed lately?

I went to the dentist.

Correction: I went to the dentist for the first time in four years.

In a nutshell: I need to floss more and remove my wisdom teeth. All four of them. And floss my teeth. I cannot emphasize how important it is to floss your teeth, people. Even if you floss vigorously before going to the dentists and your gums bleed and you realize immediately that your mouth is gross and you haven't flossed nearly enough in these four years of avoiding the dentist, you will not fool the dentist. They will know that you don't really floss enough. And they will look at you in a way that will make you want to turn into a puddle and slink out the door.

In fact, because I did not floss enough, I left the office with a prescription for Flouride. So off to the local Longs Drug Store. Where in addition to the prescription Flouride I also bought Tom of Maine's strawberry flavored toothpaste because what better way to get myself more enthused about dental hygene than buying a new product? -- and a bottle of Burt's Bee's buttermilk lotion because I tried the sample and it smelled so good.

Now I have to schedule an appointment with the oral surgeon to remove the four wisdom teeth. The dentist assured me they couldn't stay in my mouth even though they've been lying there, parallel to my jawline, for the past four years.

"It's best to remove the wisdom teeth at a ... relatively young age," the dentist's assistant said in a way that made me feel distinctly that by "relatively young" she meant 17 or 18 not 23 and 11 months.

Then she added, "Too bad you got your own insurance now. If you did it when you were younger your dad could have paid for it." Pause. "Maybe you should try to get your dad to pay for it anyway."