My Fellow Inebriates,

Miss P had a lingual frenectomy yesterday. I hadn’t been paying attention to her orthodontic odyssey, otherwise I would have known about the laser snip to her sublingual frenulum—that thin membrane stretching from mouth floor to tongue underside—which had became an obstacle to inserting a new orthodontic appliance.

The whole thing seemed so sudden—like some sort of periodontal whim on the part of our crazy parents. Why didn’t they mention it??? I would have been sympathetic. Maybe I would have volunteered to serve as Comfort Animal. Certainly I would have offered blender drinks afterward.

According to Dad, P was beyond brave, especially when he and Miss V had to leave the room for the 15-minute procedure, leaving her in the hands of a strange doctor with a laser. But seriously, how sudden. Is this how we do things now? Take the kid in for a check-up and next thing you know, we’re slicing up her frenulum?! I mean, “WTF?” is what P should be saying, if she can manage to say it yet.

Parents often go for the old ambush when it comes to vaccinations and other scary shit. By this time “just a check-up” should be a red flag for P and V. But it’s never certain…sometimes a check-up is just a check-up. Sometimes you get stuck in the arm. And sometimes a doctor singes off your frenulum with a fucking laser. OMG.

Still. If we wanted orthodontics to proceed (and why wouldn’t we want a dentist to have all that liquor money?), this appalling thing needed to be done. So said my dad. So I decided to learn more about the frenectomy. How much did it hurt P? How long would she need blender drinks? Did she need medicine and/or tequila in said blender drinks? Would that crazy frenulum thing grow back? And would she ever trust my parents to lead her into any sort of medical building again?

I googled “lingual frenectomy” hoping for these answers. But I got other answers I hadn’t thought of.

Holy crap, this was a whole other tangent. Sordid and irrelevant! But intriguing! What the hell was this thread about? What kind of activity was this guy engaging in? (It sounded vaguely cannibalistic.) I’m just a bear, so I had no idea, and I was afraid to google anything else. So I asked Dolly if she knew.

I haven’t mentioned Dolly in a very long time because she asked threatened me—specifically about using the word “girlfriend,” which she maintains she never was, never has been, and never would/will. Ask her if she’s a furvert, she’ll titter, cuddle up to Red Bear, and issue no denials, but with me? Absolutely not. Dolly wishes she had one of those gadgets from Men in Black so she can erase the sweet memories my two brain cells occasionally swap back and forth about her. That or a machete.

Still. Dolly read the frenectomy thread. “And your question is, LB…?”

“What the hell is that guy talking about? Is he actually eating people? Eating beautiful women?”

“LB, you are a total embarrassment.”

“Oh. Well, I kind of knew that.”

“It’s okay, LB. But you’re on your own with this one. After all, my underwear are sewn on.”

Now I was even more confused. “But who can I ask? You’re the smartest in the toybox, Dolly. I can’t ask Scarybear. He’ll kick my ass. In fact, I’ll have no choice but to tag this post with the phrase ‘eating beautiful women out’ in the hope that someone will explain it to me. ”

“You don’t need to know everything, LB.”

“There’s no danger of that!”

“Be that as it may. But maybe you should stick to what your brain can handle. Have you tried any new gins lately?”

“I have actually. I had some PINK 47, which tried to kick BROKER’S ass with 47 percent alcohol. Not a bad gambit.”

“That’s why you smell like juniper,” said Dolly.

“Juniper’s nice, right?”

“It is. But you also smell like persecution and mange.”

She’s probably right. How can I not feel persecuted when just last night my dad suggested we take a little trip to the laundry room? “Just a rinse with some Woolite,” he said.

OMFG!! That’s kind of like “just a check-up.”