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Sample Humor Column

It Was On Fire When He Capped It

by Stephen Morrill

" Here," Doc Skreecher said. "Look in this mirror."

I turned the hand-mirror until I could see myself. The bright bar of light from above the chair lit my mouth like there was a grand opening in progress.

" Nice visage," I said, although it came out more like "haah hihage," on account of all the heavy machinery Doc Skreecher had parked in my mouth. I held the mirror slightly to one side, trying to see my right profile. Who is this handsome devil, I thought to myself.

" Stop that," the dentist barked. "Look into your mouth. Look at that tooth."

I tore my eyes away from the gorgeous spectacle and peered into my mouth, an act I instantly regretted. Far in the back, looking more like Mount St. Helens after she blew her top, lay the remains of one of my molars. It, too, had blown a top.

" Waa hooh?" I was amazed. That looked like it should hurt. Then I noticed my tongue. Neither the doc, nor Nurse Ratchet had bothered to take their boots off before climbing in to reach the job site. My tongue was grey.

" Ahhhh," I cried. "Hung ih hrey!"

I've written humor columns for a variety of magazines and once won a Florida Magazine Association award for them.

After a while Doc Skreecher started mumbling under his breath. It seemed to be some primitive form of communication.

" Thamaturge extractor," he said. Nurse Ratchet handed him a tool.

" Ambivalence processor." Another tool.

" Semaphore variagator." This one looked like a tiny saber mounted sideways on a steel rod. I noticed that all the tools were stainless steel, had sharp edges or points, and had the oddly-curved shapes you see in movies about the Spanish Inquisition. My eyeballs were about out on stalks, trying to see what was going on.

Then Nurse Ratchet handed Doc Skreecher a tool. He took it without comment, banged away with it, and handed it back. She handed him another one. And another one.

Wait a minute here, I thought. Either she knows ahead of time what he's going to ask for, or he just uses whichever tool she gives him. I clenched my hands tighter and tried to turn one eyeball each way to watch both of them.

Doc Skreecher had his drill—obviously his personal favorite tool—going again. That was when I discovered an odd biological fact. Doctors and college professors would complicate this, so I'll make it simple.

You see, your nose-hole connects to your mouth-hole somewhere out of sight down your throat. I can prove this: once when I was younger and drank too much of the fruit of the cactus in a Mexican restaurant, I threw up and had a refried bean lodged in my sinuses for a week. At times like that, you grow to hate the smell of refried beans.

What I smelled now was smoke. The building's on fire, I thought. No, Doc Skreecher's drill is on fire. Then it hit me. My teeth were on fire. Right on cue, wisps of smoke began to drift out of my mouth and form a sort of halo around Doc Skreecher's head. This maniac and his sadistic sidekick were burning my mouth down and whistling while they worked.

" Har!" I shouted. "Hooh on har!"

Skreecher glanced up in annoyance. "Try to relax your tongue," he said.

Why should my tongue be relaxed, I thought; I mean, my entire body is only touching the chair at the top of my head and my heels.

" Har," I whimpered.

" Fire extinguisher," Skreecher snapped. Nurse Ratchet unfastened one from the wall, stuck the big plastic cone into my mouth, and hosed my tooth down with a long burst of carbon dioxide.

Later, she insisted that it wasn't smoke I was smelling.

" Teeth only smoke when we don't use this irrigator," she said, holding up a small garden hose. It was the only tool in the room that hadn't been in my mouth.

" Oh," I said. "That's good to know."

— end —

Copyright, 2005, by Stephen Morrill