Last week I went to the dentist. He told me that like 5-10% of the adult population of the world, I have a weird "tongue thrust" that makes me look weird when I swallow. (I am between 5-10% of the population in so many categories, especially medically, that it seriously boggles my mind that I could be outside the standard deviation in so many ways.)
It also complicates my life greatly because my orthodontist had to put a lingual bar across my top teeth, really high up close to my gumline, so that my teeth wouldn't move when said muscle thrust its way toward the top of my mouth.
Furthermore, it means that for whatever reason, I swallow down the wrong tube more often than it seems anybody else ever does and therefore I am always eye-watering and trying to contain myself (usually it happens at public events, like work dinners, banquets, or dates), failing miserably, until I can swallow more stuff and soothe the passage and make it all go away.
Anyway, I was thinking about tongues, and it hearkened me back (yes I know that doesn't make sense; I am going to create a new colloquialism) to the time when I was either seven or nine (can't remember which). I was in Sunday School, and there were two or three of us that had the answers more regularly and wanted to share even more regularly than we knew the correct answers in the class. Everybody else just seemed like they were there to either moon about or socialize. Sometimes, socialize meanly. Occasionally, nicely. We are people, so that is how it goes. But I digress (as usual).
I remember that Bishop T was our teacher. He'd just been let go of his official duties, and got stuck teaching the little kids. I wonder if he was overwhelmed or if he had requested the assignment. In any case I think that handling seven (there were fourteen of us, so we had to be split into two classes) inquisitive minds (or even three) is a lot of work.
As a side note, one time, for Christmas, he invited us over to his house and we had gargantuan banana splits. I had never had a bona fide banana split before. It was glorious. He even had the cherries!!! (I don't like cherries, but it totally blew my mind that banana splits could be so fancy. Heretofore, "fancy" was getting bubble-gum flavored ice cream at Baskin Robbins.)
Anyway! Back to Sunday School. He was trying to teach us a lesson. He asked us which muscle in the body was the strongest. Me, being who I am, immediately piped up (most likely without raising my hand) and said that the uterus was the strongest muscle. (I think I really meant myometrium, but I wasn't that advanced yet.) How could anything else compare to something that was strong enough to push a baby into the world? It was indisputable logic; however, it was not the logic he was looking for. He immediately started to interject, to guide us to his point. He began by saying, gently, "No, it's the tongue that's the strongest."
I started to doubt myself. After all, I knew that muscles had to be exercised in order to get stronger. How could a uterus be strong if it had never been exercised before? I had never exercised *my* uterus, so I wasn't sure. But then one of the other "always knows the answer" kids agreed with me. (He knew more of the details than I did, but suffice it to say, the lesson plan was completely derailed within the blink of an eye.)
Poor Bishop T. His point, of course, was that tongues can be vicious, and can hurt more than anything else. Sticks and stones, and all of that. I don't remember. All I remember was the muscle talk.
My dentist sure thinks my tongue is strong. He said, "That's why I can't take the lingual bar off your teeth - your tongue is such a strong muscle that it will move your teeth." I don't have kids, so my uterus hasn't been tested, but I bet it's pretty strong, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment