We have a joke in our family. "If there's a bone in the meat, Mom'll find it." No, this is not supposed to have any hidden dirty message. I have a bad habit of finding bits of bone in sausage or other meat, and hurting a tooth. I really hit one Saturday night. My wonderful husband had cooked up some beautiful "boneless" ribeye steak. I had cut off a bit and chomped into it. Well, there was a small bone chip in that bite of beef, and my front tooth hit it hard.

Now, this is the same tooth that 40-plus years ago, hit my sister's head in an unfortunate jumping-on-the-bed accident. It got a nice chip off of one corner back then, but was otherwise functional. I lived with it just fine that way for decades. Then about 12 years ago, my dentist asked me if I didn't want that fixed. I told him I didn't know it was fixable. I'd been in the Air Force 14 years, and those wonderful, ambitious dentists there never mentioned it. So, my dentist told me about the wonder of veneers, and talked me into having it done. After a good bit of discomfort and hundreds of dollars out of pocket, my tooth looked a lot better.

Until Saturday night.

That little chip of bone knocked out a bigger hunk of the veneer than my sister's skull had knocked out of my original tooth. I can't say the impact was painful, but it got my attention! The hole in my tooth felt as big as the Grand Canyon. It was rough, with sharp edges. I was afraid the sharp edges would cut my tongue, or the hole would make my tooth sensitive to temperature. Fortunately that wasn't the case. It just felt really weird, and made concentrating on anything else difficult.

So, I went to my dentist's office first thing this morning. I apologized, saying I didn't have an appointment. Then I showed the receptionist the hole in my front tooth, and she told me to come back in an hour, when the doctor had some available time. Whew!!! My new dentist patched up that awful hole with nicety and dispatch; it looked almost as good as new. We made a plan for a permanent replacement, and I got on with my day.