And now, the weather.

In case you don’t know, that’s an excerpt from A Pickle for the Knowing Ones by Timothy Dexter, a man known for making terrible financial choices at the right time. For example, he sent coal to Newcastle, which arrived just after miners went on strike, so he made a fortune. His whole life is a farce.

I used to have really bad dentist anxiety, so my teeth got pretty bad before I finally saw someone. My dentist prescribed some kind of twilight drug before my procedures, so I could still respond to commands, but I’d have no memory of the event. I’ve had two root canals and the surgeon had me use the same drugs for both procedures. I don’t know if that’s a viable option, but I don’t think I could have done them without.

Otherwise, when you go in for your consult, be honest about your anxiety. If you don’t want to hear the details of the procedure, tell them that. They have to inform you of risks, but they don’t have to go into detail about the procedure. I brought in headphones, which helped me calm down until the drugs kicked in, though, oddly, I can remember the music I woke up to and not much else. I was so scared in the days leading up to the first procedure, but the pain relief was so great that I’m glad I did it. If nothing else, focus on that.

You mean a poozooka?

No idea what your reading level is, but here are some of the suggestions I’ve made to customers recently:

Harry Potter, if for no other reason than the cultural impact

Ender’s Game: children being taught to be elite military officers

Small Gods: satirizes religion, religious institutions, etc. If you ever want to read Discworld, this is a very good starting point

We Free Men: also Discworld, but YA-focused and about a girl who becomes a witch

Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal: author imagines what Jesus and his BFF Biff were doing for those thirty years missing not recorded in the Bible.

Kindred: a woman starts to travel back in time to the pre-Civil War South. She can’t control it and she doesn’t know why. Probably Butler’s most accessible novel.

A Canticle for Leibowitz: humanity nuked itself back to the early medieval period and this one holy order watches it rebuild. It’s hard to describe this book in a satisfactory way without just summarizing it, but it’s one of my favorites and I’ve read it multiple times

The Giver: YA dystopian novel about a very structured society and the kid who is able to see through it. The sequels aren’t too bad either

The Hobbit: much easier to read than Lord of the Rings, but full of the same heroics plus dragons, dwarves and a clever hero

Definitely in Michigan. It was one of the only parts of my speech that never disappeared after living in Texas for a decade.

Wouldn’t that make him a monotreme?

Maybe that was Girl Hitler.

No. But also, this is Ontario, well-known for being outside US jurisdiction.