Do you love going to the dentist like I do? I’ll bet you don’t, because most people would rather do anything than have strangers with their hands in your mouth drilling and poking and prodding and all of the associated fun of dental visits. I spent much more of my life in the dentist’s chair than I ever thought possible starting when I was 14 years old and had most of my front teeth knocked out while playing in a backyard football game. That was back in the day before mouthguards were even something anyone knew about, and it only cost me about six teeth and a lifetime of partial plates and dentist visits. You put forth what effort you must to maintain a reasonable appearance because as we all know bad teeth are not going to attract the opposite sex. Over the centuries there have been some strange superstitions about teeth. Some may be true and others ridiculous and here they are . . .

• Don’t trust people with pointed teeth regardless of how charming they are! You never know, vampires traditionally have pointed teeth and it’s best not to take any chances.

• People with obvious spaces between their teeth will be lucky, wealthy, and widely traveled. This was a common belief before orthodontists.

• People who have well-placed teeth with no gaps have fine singing voices.

• People with protruding teeth will live a short life. Remember, these were the days before braces.

• Breaking a tooth is a sure sign a friend will die.

• Those of you who have teeth with few cavities have a good deal of sexual strength. If you have teeth susceptible to cavities, you are prone to sexual weakness.

• It’s bad luck to count the teeth of a baby. But if a baby is born with teeth, he or she will be a famous adult but only if you don’t count them.

• It’s bad luck for a man with false teeth to marry a woman with false teeth. The marriage will be unhappy.

• The ancients had a number of talismans to avoid a toothache. Split open a nutshell. Dig out the meat but be careful to keep the two halves intact. Put a dead spider in one half and close up the shell. Hang it around your neck on a string and you will never have another toothache.

• Always carry a wolf’s tooth with you. You will never get a toothache.

• Last but not least, if you cut your fingernails on a Friday, you will not have a toothache for a month.

There you have it, the wisdom of the ages concerning teeth. There’s only one thing I know for certain. If I had all of the money I’ve spent on my teeth, I could’ve bought that Lamborghini that remains on my bucket list.

KEEP SMILING