Lemme ask y'all something: Say if you were, like, flossing your teeth and you came across something that looked like a blister of some sort on your upper gum, but it didn't hurt even after you popped it; it only bled and pussed a little. Now, say that this blister thingy was kind of large, like maybe as big as the tip of your finger, but not the whole tip (which, let's face it, on a surface area the size of your gums can look rather intimidating). Would you immediately run to the Innernet, look up oral cancer and then totally freak out and, after calling the dentist and leaving a somewhat alarming message on his voicemail, call one of your best friends at 11:22 p.m. crying a little at the suspicion that you may have oral cancer!?? Or, say if YOU didn't, would you think the person that DID is a total wacko hyphochondriac!??

You would?

Oh. Because that was totally me last night.

No, no, don't feel bad about calling me a nutcase; I've been known get a little histrionic about my perceived maladies, after all, like the time I decided, after reading a Woman's Day article, that I had vulvar cancer; that was seven years ago. And there was the time after I got my wisdom teeth out that the sockets felt really weird and I described it as what necrotizing fasciitis might feel like. (TOG still brings that up every so often, as if I said I HAD necrotizing fasciitis, which I never did. I don't think.) Or before I got my wisdom teeth out, how I quizzed the oral surgeon about the possiblities of dying while under twilight sedation. (SERIOUSLY rare, and annoying to ask the surgeon. Feel free to use it if you like.) Of course, mock me if you must, but had I not decided I had vulvar cancer? I would have never gotten to the gynie to find out I was in the carcinoma in situ stage of cervical cancer. And had I not gone to the dentist today, I wouldn't have found out a tooth on which I had a pulp treatment when I was 10 has gotten infected and I now need a root canal, so see!?? ...

Oh. Wait. I could've probably done without that last bit of info, because do you know how exPENSIVE it's going to be!?? Shit. So much for getting caught up with my bills ...

In other news, I would like us all to bow our heads in a moment of silence for my lost virginity, which got lost 20 years ago today at around 1-ish, 2-ish in the afternoon. Do you beLIEVE that shit!??