In today's world, information is readily available to us. I remember (not so many years ago) listening to a song and wondering about the lyrics. Or seeing a movie and saying, "Hey, what else was that guy in?". (Answer for my mom: Old School). Or I would make friendly wagers on Jeopardy type trivia and sometimes go months without figuring out the answer. (I think Road Trip Joe still owes me a beer for our Sputnik wager from 9 years ago).
Yet, even with the seemingly limitless amount of information available to us, there are still some questions that linger around in my noggin. Questions that just don't quite make sense. It's almost as if I can't connect the dots in any sort of common sense manner.
Last night I began thinking about wisdom teeth. Just about everybody I know has had them surgically removed. I had mine out around the age of 16 or 17. Three of them were impacted behind the jaw bone, causing me all sorts of pain. What I can't figure out is... What did people do a hundred or more years ago? Along the same lines, what do people do about their wisdom teeth today in 3rd world countries? As I posed this question last night, I got a few answers that didn't quite seem to satisfy me. (Not that my approval has any merit. But, you know... I'm still ill-at-ease about this). The answers ranged from "They used rocks to remove them" to "We've evolved since then". The first answer is gross and the more I think about the actual procedure, the more I think that using rocks to cut through your jaw bone wouldn't quite work. And honestly, I don't think that human skulls have shrunk or "evolved" that much in 4 or 5 generations. Which leads me to believe that people just let the wisdom teeth come in. That eventually they'd stop trying to push through the jaw bone. Or they'd eventually start coming in sideways, messing up the rest of your teeth. All in all, I bet it was a painful life. But I wonder why we don't hear more about it in writing or song or plays or history. If you're in dentistry, perhaps you could help chime in here. The one thing I did learn about all of this... When I'm asked this November 22nd what I'm thankful for, I now have an answer - "Wisdom teeth extraction".
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One other mystery I can't figure out is Neil Peart's drumming.
There is no F$&kin' drummer better than Neil Peart!
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