Dear Karma Cleanser:
Can a bad break-up cause a toothache? Every since I split with my honey bunny, I’ve been seeing a new guy: My dentist! No, we’re not dating (not yet anyway) but I’ve had no less than three fillings and a root canal. In six months! Keep in mind that before this I never had any dental work at all. Nothing. Zip. Like one cavity in 22 years. And now all of a sudden I’m like my dentist’s best customer. It’s embarrassing.
You’re wondering if there’s some obvious tie between my ex and my rotting teeth. There’s not one. He wasn’t a pastry chef or anything. The relationship did end on bad terms, which is mostly my fault, and that’s also the reason I wonder if this dental trouble is just bad karma coming back to punch me in the mouth. If it is, how do I stop it?
—Oral decay
The Karma Cleanser can relate. After our last break-up, we found ourselves in a three-way relationship — with Ben & Jerry. It’s normal and expected to eat bad stuff when times are rough. Even if you didn’t do that, it’s possible your recent drilling ills do have a correlation to the doomed love affair. How to fix it? First, stop calling your ex your “honey bunny,” which is just silly. Second, floss. Third, apologize. Rinse and repeat.
Dear Karma Cleanser:
I work in a 13-story building. Floors 2, 7 and 8 are occupied by some government agency that I’m not even sure of. Though there are there elevators in our building, I always end up riding in the elevator with the same data-entry girls from the agency. They are fat and rude. We also work next to a McDonald’s, and every day at lunch these cows go next door and haul back their Big Macs and Cancer Fries. This causes the elevators to stink even more than normal. When I find myself riding in an elevator with one of these savages, I daydream about the elevator chord snapping and everyone in the car falling to their deaths. I realize this isn’t a good way to earn good karma points, but it makes an otherwise stomach-churning experience almost enjoyable.
—No Love in my Elevator
Wow, such vitriol. We sort of like the smell of Mickey D’s fries, but all things in moderation, of course. Yes, your death fantasies for the data girls do ring awfully gruesome — because really, do they deserve to die just for being portly? Then again, anyone who insists on taking the elevator to the second floor probably should be punished.
Been bad? karmacleanser@gmail.com.
This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2005.
