To those who answered “bad”: please do me a favor and die so there’s more room for the rest of us. To those on the fence on this issue, bear witness to my overwhelming anecdotal evidence!
For the past few days, my mouth has been hurting–specifically, the lower gum occupying the region where my lower right wisdom tooth would be if it hadn’t been pulled. I first noticed it on Wednesday, hoping that it would go away if I slept on it. It didn’t, so I called my dentist and made an appointment for Friday. And on Friday, it was even worse. I actually avoided eating on Thursday night and Friday morning because it was too painful.
The friendly dentist walked into the room, made a crack about how the building windows needed cleaning, asked me when my wisdom teeth had been pulled, and poked around at my gum for a couple of seconds. He produced a small kernel of unpopped popcorn, told me to soak the gum in salt water for a while, and call if it didn’t get better. All in all, he was probably in and out in under 90 seconds.
To those of you who think our bodies are miraculous devices that will attend to themselves, I humbly point out that a tiny piece of popcorn disabled me for nearly two days, until a trivial medical procedure resulted in a near-instant, full recovery. To those who think God will attend to your ills… perhaps, if you’re lucky, something will happen to shake you free from the shackles of your faith–hopefully not something too horrible.