Sheryl Crow Will Take Your Mind Away

The dental assistant reclined the dental chair, and I immediately began to think about Switzerland.  Chalets.  Heidi.  Cow bells.  Cheese.  Alpenhorns.  That is when I realized the power of distraction.

Lying in the dental chair, I was staring up at a photo of Switzerland cut out of an old calendar.  Someone had taped it on the ceiling to distract me.  

To distract me from the dental procedure I was about to undergo.  Yes, I was under anesthesia, but the photo was meant to take my mind out of the dental office to someplace far away so I would not focus on what was happening inside my mouth. 

Distraction was another form of anesthesia; it worked.

Then I went to a new dentist, who did not have a photo of Switzerland on the ceiling.  I needed to find something to distract me.  The hardest part of a dental procedure for me is ignoring the sound of the drill.  I fear what I hear; so, I brought a Walkman with me and played tapes while the dentist drilled away.  Sheryl Crow's music took my mind away.

The Walkman morphed into an iPod.  Sheryl Crow continued to take my mind away, helping me through 32 cancer treatments, distracting me from the sound of the machine that shot radiation into me.

My iPod helped me every time I needed it --- until I got a tooth extracted a couple of weeks ago.  On the “Universal Tooth Numbering System”, it was tooth #18.  It was rotten; it needed to go. 

I was ready for the extraction:  

1. The dental surgeon had pumped my bloodstream with Novacaine

 2. The dental surgeon had pumped my lungs with wonder-working nitrous oxide (apparently, no one calls it laughing gas any more).

3. My headphones and iPod were ready to distract me.

The dental chair reclined.  Suddenly my iPod music sounded faint.  I tried fiddling with the iPod --- something not easy to do when you are numbed and gassed and lying horizontal.  I swirled the iPod wheel; I pressed the center button.  The music was still faint.

The drill was not faint.  It made a racket as it ground through tooth enamel.

The dentist’s voice, however, was louder than the drill:  “This is a nasty one.”  “The tooth is fighting me.”  “This may be the most difficult extraction of my career.”

I was not too numbed and gassed to know that the surgeon was in his sixties, and has had a long career.  What was happening inside my mouth?  Where was Sheryl Crow when I needed her?

Finally the dentist won the fight with tooth #18.  The drill stopped.  The dentist explained that most people have two roots on tooth #18, but I had surprised him by having three roots.

Then the dentist told me that he liked my music.

That was it!  There was no problem with my iPod.  Instead, I was too gassed up to figure out that the headphones had slipped off my ears during the procedure.  That’s why I could barely hear the music. 

But the surgeon could hear the music.  Sheryl Crow took his mind away.

. - . - . - . - .

Here is Sheryl (and her audience) singing The First Cut is the Deepest, recorded in St. Louis on a cellphone (4 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2wDcYTVNfQ

   I would have given you all of my heart 
   But there's someone who's torn it apart 
   And he's taking just all that I had
   But if you wanna try to love again
   Baby, I'll try to love again, but I know

   The first cut is the deepest

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Struggling For Air, Struggling For Lunch

At the point where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all meet, there is a huge waterfall: Iguazu.  When Eleanor Roosevelt visited Argentina and saw Iguazu she said, "Poor Niagara!  This makes Niagara look like a kitchen faucet."

In 2012, my buddy Randy and I went to Iguazu Falls National Park to experience a waterfall so wide you cannot see from one end of it to the other.

Entering the park, we encountered signs showing large photos of hands. All the hands had big gashes in them.  We were not sure how these signs related to us; so we hiked past the signs, through the jungle, and came to a cliff top.  Iguazu Falls was thundering in front of us.  Major waterfalls and minor waterfalls, over 200 in total.

We climbed down to the boat ride at the base of the falls. I knew about The Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, where you were issued a raincoat and the boat got close enough to Niagara Falls to wet the passengers with mist.  The Argentines, however, did not issue us raincoats.  Instead, they gave us life jackets and rubber bags.  

This boat would be doing more than getting close to the falls; this boat would be actually going into the falls.   In spite of knowing what to expect, I was not calm as the captain revved up the engine.  I put my wallet and my eyeglasses in the rubber bag.  The fact that there was a staff member on board taking photos was a bit reassuring --- the boat company obviously expected me to survive so I could buy a photo when the boat ride was over.  

The boat went into a wall of white falling water.  I ducked.  Water came pounding down on me.  I was deafened; I was drenched.  I had only one thought in my mind: will I be able to breathe in the middle of a waterfall?  It was a struggle, but I got some air.  

Then we were out in the open air again.  Breathe.  Wait, what are all the Argentines on the boat saying?  "Mas!  Mas!  Mas!"  

Just as I was wondering if Mas! was the Spanish word for More!, the boat went into the falls again.  I ducked and managed to get some air.  We were out in the open again, but my fellow passengers were eager for more.  We went in a third time.

Once the boat pulled away from the falls, it was eerily peaceful.  We disembarked, and began the climbing the steps up the cliff, thinking about lunch.

On the top of the cliff, some school girls on a field trip had settled onto benches to eat the lunches their mothers had packed for them.  As we walked past the girls, we noticed eyes peering out of the underbrush: coatis. 

A coati is a type of South American raccoon.  Coatis are diurnal.  The ones in Iguazu Falls National Park have switched from a diet of tarantulas and rodents to a diet of tourist food.

A bunch of coatis came out of the underbrush and proceeded to grab the schoolgirls’ lunch bags.  The girls jumped up, screamed, moved away.  One girl struggled with a coati over her lunch, but the coati won.

I felt sorry for the girls who had lost their lunches.  But I was not going to be a hero and try to retrieve their lunches from these animals.  I had realized why the national park put up signs showing large photos of hands with gashes.

We spent ten days in Argentina.  The highlight of our visit was the time we spent hunched over, water pounding down on us, struggling for air.

. - . - .

Iguazu Falls plays a major part in the 1986 film, “The Mission”, with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons.  Here is the movie trailer (2 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-l2-Q7vODc

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com/?page_id=108

Jungle Cats Peering Down At Me

My friends were going away for 5 days over Thanksgiving.  They asked if I could do them a favor by keeping an eye on their house and feeding their cats. 

Of course, I said yes.  However, the favor was not as simple as it seemed.

First of all, I lived in Minneapolis and my friends lived 13 miles away in Fridley, Minnesota.  One night on this long drive, I noticed a lonely election campaign sign in a field in Fridley.  It caught my eye because it was 5 feet by 3 feet and said “Vote SCHNEIDER for City Council”.  The election was over weeks before, and the poor sign was sitting out in the cold.  

Since my name is Schneider, I grabbed the sign, and took it home to my nice warm apartment.

Second of all, it was November in Minnesota.  This means snow.  On the first night, I got to my friends’ house after we had a 3-inch snowfall.  I dragged their snow blower out of their garage.  I was an apartment dweller and had never once operated a snow blower in my life.  I figured out how to use it and cleared the driveway. 

However, luck was against me.  On the fifth night, the night before my friends were to return, we had a 4-inch snowfall.   My friends were far away in nice warm North Carolina and did not know that I had to clear their driveway twice.

Third of all, the cats I had to feed included both domestic cats and wild jungle cats.  The domestic cats lived on the main floor of the house and ate cat food.   The jungle cats were from South America.  They looked like small bobcats, and were being bred for medical research.  The jungle cats were not kept in cages; they were all in a large walk-in enclosure in the basement.  They ate meat.  

On the first night, I went down the basement steps and looked at the cats in their walk-in enclosure, lit by a single light bulb.  The jungle cats were sitting on perches up high peering down at me.  Their food dish was on the floor.  That meant that I would have to bend over to put meat in their dish, exposing the back of my neck. 

What if one of the jungle cats decided I was an intruder?  Or got impatient?  Or was just plain ornery?  It could leap from its perch, rip open the back of my neck, and I would wind up bleeding to death lying alone on the cement floor of a basement lit by a single light bulb in Fridley, Minnesota, and the only people in the world who knew I was there were in North Carolina.

But it was November in Minnesota, which meant I had worn a big down jacket while driving to Fridley.  I went upstairs, put on my big down jacket and pulled the hood up over my head.  With my neck covered, I no longer felt vulnerable when bending over to put meat in the cats’ dish.

Actually I enjoyed doing this favor for my friends.  I could brag that I had fed wild South American jungle cats.  I felt proud that I had learned how to operate a snow blower without using an instruction book.  And I gained a special sign.  

I displayed “Vote SCHNEIDER for City Council” in my apartment even though I was not the SCHNEIDER on the sign and it was the Fridley City Council, not the Minneapolis City Council.  Visitors would see the sign and ask me if I had run for city council. 

I would lie and say: “Yes!  Did you vote for me?”  My visitors became silent.  I had gained a sign that made people squirm.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com