I wonder how many people go to the dentist once a year to have their teeth cleaned and examined? I go twice. Why? Because Elizabeth, the dental assistant, puts me on her schedule. Then she sends me a postcard the first week in December and the first week in June.

She's been doing this for around 20 years. I have no dental insurance and pay the ever escalating bill myself. I guess I got the habit of going to the dentist from my mother who tried around 10 dentists before she picked out our current one and declared him to be the best dentist she could find.

I guess it's a good habit. I still have all my teeth. Every one of them except one that came in crooked behind the row of upper teeth on the left side of my mouth. That was before I was paying the bill so, at the advice of the old dentist I went to when I was a kid, I got the tooth pulled.

Let's face it. I'm obsessed. Someone, anyone, tells me a things needs doing every six months and I go get it done. This time I got an oral cancer screening that was negative. The bill didn't quite hit the hundred and three quarters mark but it's getting close. And, of course, Medicare does bother to pay for it.

It goes to show that for all it's complaining about the cost of treating old people, the government really doesn't care if we have any choppers in our mouths or not. Well, I'll try to keep mine for a long as I can. Why not?