Duty and Failure

Have to leap up in a minute and spiritually and mentally prepare myself for a visit to the dentist. It's not dire, just a routine sort of thing, where I go and cover myself with shame and apology for not flossing more often. Did I floss at all? Yes I did. Should it have been more often? Probably. But wouldn't it be better if they lept up to congratulate me for doing it at all?

I feel this so often. Many things that are within the objective realm of possibility–sure, I could, conceivably, floss every day–don't fall within the realm of actual possibility. By which I mean, I'm not going to do it every day. I should, I am physically able, but I'm not going to actually do it. Therefore, it is not a real thing. I could write that note, I should write it, but who are we kidding, I'm going to forget, or worse, deliberately chose not to.

This being so, when I do any small thing I should have done that I was able to do, shouldn't there be a party and a good time? I mean, I know there won't be. I will sucumb to the furrowed brow and the half sigh of the young lady with the sharp metal tools who cannot believe that something so easy and obvious, as flossing every day clearly is, should fall outside of the realm of actuality. I bet though, if I had the use of my mouth, for more than a drooling, gaping second, and asked her about how often she reads the bible, she would immediately be covered with shame. And then I could say, sweetly and with gentle compassion, “Oh, it's not hard. Just twenty minutes a day. Practically anybody can do it.” And then, I would be very well satisfied, having gotten my own back, as it were.

The point being–if I may just, in total false humility, make a tiny point, to the dentist, who isn't even reading this, but pretend you're her and that I finally and gloriously score a whole point–Everybody Fails At Something. You just regularly see my failure whereas I never get to see yours, hidden, as you are, behind the crisp lightly scented mask of the Internet.

So there we are. Off I go then. Doing that which I ought to do. Going to the dentist. Not canceling even though the only two hours of sunshine today will be those hours I lie recumbent in a pastel perfectly padded chair.