Here Comes the Tongue

No one said that parts of the human body would be pretty.  Or symmetrical, respond well to wear and tear or be comparable to the Fibonacci sequence in nature.

 

No one said that the tongue would be anything other than squigy, squishy, fleshy, scrape-worthy, coated and a plateau for a trillion taste buds.

Until yesterday.

 

It’s a funny old thing, the tongue.  Imagine my surprise to realize that some of us possess a superior quality of tongue and that not all tongues are created equal.

 

The things you learn at the dentist.

 

This post is about bragging rights.  Recently, I’ve had the misfortune to suffer a molar issue.  Unlike a ‘mole’ issue, where the person could be described as a scrag, a ho, a trollop, my situation has been tooth based.  One of my large, wedgy, double teeth at the back of my mouth snapped in two while crunching down on a Brazil, subsequently rendering that tooth a jagged, tongue-slashing machine.

 

Sure, the nut I stuffed into my gob was bigger than the country it’s named after.  Yeah, I was starving, so I was shoveling snacks in like a hungry Energizer bunny, and okay, so my crunch was much worse than my bite, but really?  Surely those mofo molars that have been hanging around for a long, long time should be able to handle the brawn of a Brazil.  Or two.

 

And a nut as well?

 

Nope.  This day, my tooth came a cropper and was ripped out by its root hairs by the meat of a Brazilian.  Ouch. 

 

Some time later, I visited the friendly neighbourhood dentist.  The fam attend a dentist clinic, where about six of the gummy people work their wonders — pulling, expunging, stoppering, drilling, spitting (oh, sorry, that’s the patient) gas-bagging when their patient has his/her mouth full of swabs, placing knees in patient’s chests, wearing white coats, smiling with correctly aligned teeth, and other orifice adventures.  Due to the fact that this repair was needed quite quickly, they slotted me in to see a dentist with whom I’m not familiar.

 

But let me tell you!  I am now her very biggest fan.  (Or she is mine).

 

In betwixt holding cottony swabs in the side of my mouth, spittooning into the round white basin, nodding and ahhhing and encountering LOCK JAW where I was sure that the pain of this was worse than only tooth-related pain, the dentist asked me how my tongue ‘had fared’ in the face (or mouth) of the tooth break.

 

When I bumbled and mumbled that it had been sorer than the nerve/tooth thing itself, the dentist nodded sympathetically and said ‘it’s really a jagged break.  Your tongue has been rubbing against it, and now it’s inflamed.’

 

I didn’t reply.  Firstly, I couldn’t by this stage (and the perfectly-toothed dental nurse with suction hoover was reverse foofing in my mouth with her long baton of air).  Secondly, I knew my tongue was a bit damaged.  It had been grazing against the mole-her since it had smashed.

 

‘Yes, unfortunately with breaks like this, the tongue is hard-pressed to move away.’

 

I knew there was a great joke in that statement somewhere (either crude or clean) but with the swabs and the reverse pffting, the opportunity had gone.  The dentist seemed focused on her work, but all talk was of tongue and who was I to deny a professional her need to wax lickical.  Little did I know that I was about to be complimented in the most delightful of ways …

 

‘Some tongues are badly formed and might really worry themselves against a jagged edge like this. Yours has a little, but …’ and here are the words of magic that licked at my ears: ‘Your tongue is quite well formed and has coped with the trauma.’

 

If I had been allowed the capacity (that is, if my tongue had NOT been numbed, if I hadn’t had 45 cotton things rammed into my palate, if I had full control of my oral whatnots) I would have whooped for joy.  WHO KNEW!?  I certainly didn’t.  Had I realized that I had a beautifully formed tongue nestled in my mouth, I would have chosen a very different life lollipop than the one I am currently licking around.

 

I might have been a model!  A super model, licking at the heels of our famous Elle Mc or taking a bite from the coffers of Megan Gale, ffs.  I could have been a Tongue Model!  Wow.  Perhaps not getting out of bed for less than a tongue of money each day!  I could have been on the catwalk, but as I stalked forward to strike a pose in the latest fashion, I could have halted and flash-flopped my most attractive asset!

 

My well-formed tongue would have overtaken Gene Simmons as the most notorious in the world, might have been featured on billboards and at the mouth of Sydney Harbour — imagine sailing through the heads, heading into the neck of the waterway, only to see a large-scaled, mega-pixeled shot of the most well formed tongue in the WORLD.

 

Oh.

 

And to think that none of us knew.  Finally, after all this time, I feel validated and awash with glamour.  You other tryhards?  Well get in line.  This tongue’s for hire and she don’t come cheap.  Or tastefully.