I Struck Gold on New Year’s Eve

I have to admit that I’m worth less at the end of 2020 than at the beginning. (Some of you might charge that I’m worthless all the time, but that’s a different spelling and a different thing.)

Every year when I’d go back to Florida at the end of the year, Wife Lila would have me make the rounds of doctors who would examine me, literally, from head to toe.

I couldn’t figure out if she was trying to determine if it was worthwhile to let nature take its course or if she’d have to help it along in order to collect my life insurance.

Anyway, my dentist gave me a laundry list of stuff that needed to be taken care of, but I had to get back to Missouri, and I put it off until I could find a Cape dentist who would take my insurance and knock me out with nitrous oxide.

At least some undertaker didn’t harvest it

On the last day of the year, I went in to have an old crown replaced. The doc said it was gold, something that was commonly used when the precious metal was cheaper (now that I think of it, Dad had a gold filling in one of his front teeth).

When I jokingly asked him if I’d get a discount if he kept the gold, he said that I’d be going home with it, and that some of his patients DID sell it.

He also noted that some old-time undertakers would offer to harvest the gold from their guests’ mouths in exchange for a reduced bill. (You have to ask yourself how many unscrupulous undertakers mined for gold just before the lid was screwed down.)

A quick internet search said that the price of gold fluctuates so much that it’s hard to set a price, but it’s generally fifty bucks or less.