said Ed when I recalled an incident from my early childhood. My parents wanted to have my teeth checked. I was about 5 years old. They took me to a free clinic in the Cook County Hospital Medical complex that was not far from where we lived on West Madison Street in Chicago. They didn’t tell me anything, it was all sudden and frightening.

An outing with my parents, what fun. Off in my uncle's car, a treat. Go into this huge building What is this? Hey, it seems to be about ME. Whoa. I was taken into a hangar like room with about 50 dental chairs and all of them filled with young children and surrounded with dental technicians in training. I was put into a chair. I resisted, I kept my mouth closed, I struggled. They had a plan for children like me. I was picked up and shoved (they had to shove because I was about to get away) into a small private room and they closed and locked the door.

There was a cot and a chair and a window. I was quiet, contemplating my circumstances. I lay down on the cot and free-associated. When that got boring, I looked out the window. There was a neighborhood ball game going on in a lot across the street. I watched it for a while. Finally I thought “enough” and started kicking the door. The staff came and dragged me back to the chair where, and this part is fuzzy, they must have succeeded in examining my mouth.

Ed thinks I am still like that today. I can’t be sorry. My parents should have prepared me for the event so that I wasn’t blindsided, and, frankly, who were these strangers who thought they had the right to invade my person? I seem to have been born with the “Don’t mess with me” gene.

xx, Teal