Wisdom Teeth: When Gus is 41

I’m 41 years old and crossing a major milestone tomorrow in that I’m finally having my wisdom teeth extracted. I know, I know, you’re jealous. It’s not every day you get to have a dentist put his foot on your chest to gain leverage while trying to twist free the roots of a tooth deeply calcified into the core of your jawbone.

Am I nervous? Yes. If I weren’t I’d either be ignorant or one of those loons who like to be “punished” by whip-wielding gals in pointy heels. That ain’t me. For me, pain = horror. And tooth pain = horror wrapped in madness and deep fried in crippling trauma.

But enough about my (incredibly attractive) cowardice. This post talks about the symbolism of having my wisdom teeth pulled within a month of when my son will cut his first baby teeth. That’s a 41 year diastema.

And I can’t help but wonder how my little baby’s life will be similar to or different than mine when he’s 41. Will he married to a wonderful woman like his mother? Will he be living in Boston or California, or in another country entirely?

What will a cell phone look like in 41 years? Will there be such a thing, or will today’s iPhone have the same impression on him that a crude typewriter does on me? What about television? How much bigger/flatter/better could they possibly be? Will technology have advanced to such a degree that you can simply roll up a wafer-thin TV like a yoga mat and take it with you? Will you be able to unroll it and paste it to any surface and get a perfect picture wirelessly? Will it also be a computer?

And what of our political system? Things are pretty terrible right now, with jaws jutted forward and knuckles white at the ballot box, but will they be infinitely worse or, fingers crossed, somehow more civil? Will our two-party system be three or four?

When Gus is 41 years old will there still be a single gas-fueled automobile on the road? Will commercial airlines be able to circumnavigate the planet on a single electrical charge? Will there be a hotdog stand on the moon? Proof of life on another planet (not including our people selling hotdogs on the moon)?

I can’t imagine Gus actually walking on his own, let alone shaving or dating, but will he have kids of his own when he’s 41 – or by that time will it be common for folks to wait until they’re 50 to begin raising a family?

And what about dentistry? Will today’s method of tooth extraction be remembered as barbaric when Gus is 41? Will they have figured out a way to prevent the growth of wisdom teeth at birth?

Gus will read this some day, and when he does I think he’ll laugh his butt off at some of these silly thoughts. “Ha! My father thought there’d be a hot dog stand on the moon!” for example.

Go ahead and laugh, Gus. It’s 2009, and we were supposed to have flying cars 10 years ago. And lord knows, there should have been a better way to get rid of wisdom teeth by now.