Now With More Bone! or Tora! Tora! Tora!

A re-post from 2012, while I struggle under the weight of expectations...

I have long suspected that I am special.

The freckles, of course, were my first clue.

“Angel kisses,” Grandma said, generously.

“Wait’ll they get wet,” Kevin would hiss into my ear.  “If they get wet and you scratch ‘em, they’ll stink.”

Then there’s my ability to burn myself with a curling iron, something I do at least three times a year.  And of course there’s my uncanny knack insofar as eyeballing teaspoons and tablespoons without actually owning a set myself.

And yes, whatever I’ve just cooked is supposed to taste that way.

All of this special-ness adds up to one thing:  not being surprised when the dental hygienist mentioned the tora in my mouth.

Not the torah, even if Rosh Hashanah is coming. 

The tora.

“The what now?”

“Right here,” she says, running her metallic doohickey along the roof of my mouth.  “The bony plate.”

“Uh oh-ee eigh?”

“Yep,” she says.  “The bony plate.”  She puts the doohickey away.  “That’s why you cut the inside of your mouth so often on crunchy foods.  Am I right?”

I sit up slightly, nodding.  I run my index finger along the roof of my mouth.  There is a ridge of bone running smack down the middle of it, dividing my palate in two.  “You mean not everyone has this?”

“No,” she says.  “It’s not exactly rare, but it’s not common.”

“Other people’s palates are flat?”

“Yep.”

I consider this.  “I have abnormal brain waves, too,” I tell her. 

“I don’t doubt it,” she says.

“Plus,” I say, “I can still put my feet in my mouth.”

“That’s gotta come in handy,” she grants, grinning. 

I like a dental hygienist with a sense of humor.

I open my mouth wide, try to see the top of my mouth in the little mirror, but it looks the way it’s always looked.

There’s so much yet to be discovered.