Friday, May 02, 2008

First John Patterson Reminiscence

Perhaps Dr. Ted McCaulay can perform for John Patterson the same function for remembering about 1979 as Connie Poirier does for Elly Patterson in For Better or For Worse. It will be interesting to see if Lynn Johnston repeats this combination of characters for this purpose.

We are back into the wonderful world of repeats and the first strip out of the shoot is a dentistry one. 1979 John complains about his day in dentistry, oddly complaining about a kid who bites and counts nose hairs. If you have your hands in a kid’s mouth, I can understand why biting would be a concern. However, the counting of nose hairs presents an interesting dilemma. Most times when I am in a dentist’s office, and the dentist tries to carry on a conversation, I am pretty limited due to the number of things in my mouth.

So, imagine this kid counting nose hairs. We know that Dr. Patterson knows they are nose hairs he is counting, so he must give that indication somehow. He has to say, “1 nose hair. 2 nose hairs. 3 nose hairs.” It could be distracting to Dr. John Patterson, but how the kid could carry this on with someone digging around their mouth with a sharp implement is beyond me. Even more beyond me is why any kid would want to look inside Dr. Patterson’s nose to count the hairs in the first place. John Patterson has on glasses, and I can tell you when I have been operated on by a dentist with glasses, what I look at is the reflection of my mouth in the glasses, so I can see what he or she is doing to me.

On the other hand, I have never been operating on by a dentist with as big a nose as John Patterson, so perhaps his nose blocks the view to his glasses. If that’s the case, then maybe John has a lot of hair flopping out of his nose, as if he had never learned how to trim that hair. That could provide an extra distraction. OK. I am starting to gross myself out now, so I will leave the subject right here.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'd say that John is starting to emulate Elly here: exageratinging how awful he has it to gain sympathy. It seems to me that his pleas of imminent penury are equally grounded in fact. His idea of careful careful could mean sticking to spending a set percentage of a quite comfortable net income.

2:58 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

I did notice that he mentioned Elly's typical complaints before he launched into a description of his own, as if he is trying to one-up Elly (like that can be done).

6:42 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard:

That's right! John is trying to out-Elly Elly. That's game he'll lose, of course. No one out-martyrs her.

12:37 PM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

Elly's eventual nose growth may have been her reaction to John's comment about nose hair. Her petite nose of 1979 is no match in nose hair for John's mighty schnozz. However, modern Elly could give John some competition in nose hair growth.

2:42 PM  
Blogger Mrs. Polly said...

Probably the kid updated John on the nosehair count sporadically, with the final tally at the end. I hope he did it with a big, Jerry Lewis style flourish.
But the disillusion with Dentistry! John's a broken man. All those romantic pictures you build up in Dental School, the heroism, the gratitude, where is it? Nothing. Nothing. Nosehair.

2:48 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Mrs. Polly,

But the disillusion with Dentistry! John's a broken man. All those romantic pictures you build up in Dental School, the heroism, the gratitude, where is it? Nothing. Nothing. Nosehair.

LOL. Absolutely. Leave it to a kid to destroy John’s visions of dental grandeur by pointing out his grooming failures. This is actually not too far from the perspective John used to have in his old monthly letters, where he waxes on about establishing a relationship with a family and a community through dentistry.

My own perspective on dentistry is not far removed from the perspective in Little Shop of Horrors. Some of my moments of greatest pain when I was a kid, were in the dentist’s chair. I don’t think I was ever grateful when the dentist was done. More like relieved. Sorry, dentists.

3:53 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home