[327]
06/02/2025 Monday. Papers boxes. CRISIS ETC HQ. Ridgewood, New York.
After two years of getting my teeth cleaned and scraped and oinmented, my gums prodded and poked and ravished, I finally saw a periodontist. And boy is my wallet sore. Or not. Or tragedy averted or who the hell knows what. When I got there the assistant came in and took probably 20 xrays. Told me the guy would be in shortly to have a look-see. When the guy came in he was a very serious man indeed. He poked around and then showed me some of the xrays. Told me where there was build up of plaque above my gums, that the bone was retreating in places because the plaque scared it off. Told me about a laser beam that could shoot up in there and get the gunk and maybe the bone would grow back and the areas would be sterilized and I needed a mouth guard. Okay, I said, I like what you are telling me, subscribe me to your newsletter. He said he would send the finance lady in. She came in and immediately hit me with the good news:
"Well, the whole thing is twelve, but the doctor said to give you a free mouth guard and we are offering a summer discount of 10%" Now I'm thinking, $1,200 that aint shit. Plus a free mouth gaurd? Bonus.
"Okay," I say. Joyful with progress.
"Now that brings the total to ten." I think, well shit, nobody says ten when they mean one thousand. "We can do it in one big swoop, it takes about three hours or we can break it up into two days." I'm still being quite naive and I am thinking, one big day would be great.
"Does it hurt?" I ask.
"No, they numb you up pretty good. So let me show you."
She shows me the bill. $3,000 a quadrant. Minus the mouth guard and plus the 10% discount, the bill would come to $9,987.53.
Still, quite naive, I am thinking, yes, I have that much money to spend. I don't want to spend it, it is my entire savings, but my teeth troubles are gone! What a miracle! I almost agree on the spot to just handing the money over when she gives me the sales pitch that I didn't need, that set into motion the downfall of what I believe is possibly a scam so gigantic I could probably sue if we weren't living in the timeline where malfeasance is legal.
"So we can break the payment into 10 mounthly payments, and just as long as you pay it off in a year there won't be any interest."
I am still being an idiot and agree to her terms even though I am basically taking $10,000 out of my wallet and handing it to her. She has me fill out a form. I tell her I am freelance and I don't know how much money I make per month. She says, just put the highest number down. I do some calculations in my very bright mind and come up with the number $10,000. A number that could easily be $0 as much as it could be $90,000, not that I have ever made $90,000 in a month, but what kind of arbitrary bullshit is this to begin with? I don't understand that what she is doing is taking my information for the sake of running a credit check on me. Ultimately what she needs is my Social Security Number. The other questions are just distractions to make it seem formal and legit.
Of course I fail the credit check. I have what's known as a non-credit score. It is Zero. I have no credit. She comes back to tell me I need a co-signer to get this deal of theirs. I'm still an idiot at this point. I don't understand how I have been already hoodwinked, and ironically, she doesn't know that she hoodwinked herself by giving me this option because I am willing to give her $10,000 in cash. But I don't think she thinks I am somebody capable of having that amount of money on hand. She is right, I don't, but I do. In no moral and just world would I be asked to spend my savings for scam dental work, but here we are, and there you go.
At this point I fill out the form again, but with Professor Curly's information. I now, slightly, understand it is a loan I am taking out, but I don't worry about PC because I do actually have the money. You know? I am not telling my heroin dealer I am good for it, I just need to wait until Friday when my wife gets paid, she'll understand.
I don't know PC's social security number though. Not off the top of my head, of course. I don't even know the first few numbers. So naturally I have to do some phone work to get some information. That phone work goes nowhere because at that very moment she is in rehearsal for a reading she is about to give, a reading I am about to walk over from Willy B to Union Square to watch. I call her and she doesn't answer and then I get a text: in rehearsal, whats up? the relationship equivalent of: new phone, who dis? I text that I need her ID information and her SSN, because like all good scams, I am now scamming my loved ones to perpetuate the scam. The more people who you get tied in, the better. Like mining, when you hit a vein, you keep chipping away!
I leave the dental office promising to call the finance lady when I get the information. I start walking into the city, an hour walk, over the bridge and up the East side. Somewhere on the bridge I get a text with the information from PC. She is busy with the rehearsal so she doesn't ask questions. I call the finance lady and give her the information. She gives me a phone number to call and an eight digit pin to activate the account, but the thing is, Professor Curly has to make the call.
It is, at this point, and only this point, that I realize that I have been hoodwinked.
Professor Curly never made the call. I am not paying $10,000 to get my teeth lasered. I am considering my options as to how to move forward. I think there may be a benefit in the service they were offering me, but I believe the science is nascent and maybe it will do what the guy said it will do, but I am in no rush to get it done before the summer discount expires.
Moral: Floss your teeth, bitches.
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I don't know, that story is crazy. I keep forcing myself to stop explaining how crazy it is. Explaining why it is funny at the same time. I don't know how to proceed with these fools now. I need my teeth cleaned again. Soon. What happens when I go back in? Do they pretend it never happened? Does the finance lady come talk to me? I didn't mention it before, but when I was brought to the back, where the magic happens, it was a totally different part of the building I had never been into. I even said, "Oh, nice, I have never been to this part before." The lady's laugh was nervous, I suppose, or maybe I am projecting, but maybe she was worried that I would see the scam unfolding. The whole time I was lying on the tooth recliner, a man in an open room next to mine kept saying, "Do I really need to get this root canal? It seems like I don't." Then muffled words from behind a mask, I presume, and the sound of dental equipment. The imperative meaning, Shut the fuck up. The teeth are very important, they are very important to keep healthy and clean, yet why is that we treat them like they are superficial and unconnected from our bodies? Like if these motherfuckers can just shoot lasers above our gums and make our problems disappear, like some sort of DDS Harry Potter, then what the fuck are we doing with ourselves?
I understand that people need to make money and such forth and education costs money and society revolves around services and et cetera, but in the history of human beings, I am pretty sure our teeth, and keeping them in our mouth, has been a very important venture, yet we treat it like they are just for smiling for the fucking camera. That by using them, it is our own fault for having them. I have good teeth, I am blessed, my gums, well, that is another story, apparently, but that doesn't mean that everyone else should have to suffer if they don't have good teeth. I don't know, its almost like the American health care system kind of sucks. Has anyone else noticed this? I wonder if there was a way to somehow making it so everyone had access to good care, either dental or otherwise, where it didn't matter how much money you had and maybe they would just give you the good treatment and collectively we would all benefit because nobody was suffering because they couldn't afford to take care of themselves. That maybe it would be cheaper if we all stayed healthy instead of waiting to get really sick before doing anything about it? Is that an cogent idea or have I lost my mind?
Just askin’.
Speaking of teeth and how they operate, CRISIS ETC has launched. Marine Press is now online. You can get a hold of, You Will Know, from: https://www.marine-press.com/
I will send out an official launcher soon. An explainer, as it were. But if you would like to have your mind blown before that, buy the book. It is book #1 in a 9 book series.
[insert photo of Brother Luke in Queens, smiling with teeth]
Oh baby, it does sound kind of scammy .
Teeth. Biting. We need them , but …