Month: May 2026

Just taking an informal poll today: What were you eating when you cracked a tooth?

My top three answers, which correlate to three new crowns in recent years, are: toffee, a crunchy taco, and broccoli cheese soup.

The milk chocolate toffee may have been worth it—probably because I’ll never ever eat toffee again. The taco I have forgiven and, besides, a foodie can always move from hard-shell tacos to soft tacos.

The soup one is unbelievable right? Literally. The recipe is titled Best Broccoli Cheese Soup Ever. And it is.Several years ago, our youngest daughter cracked a tooth eating a blackberry. The pit inside did it.  My sister-in-law cracked a tooth playing Twister as a child and, as an adult, pulled out a crown eating a Tootsie Roll.

Now in the process of having yet another new crown, I’m thinking I probably should be addressed as Her Majesty. I wouldn’t mind if certain people curtseyed and bowed now and then either. Come to think of it, a robe would be nice. A scepter could come in handy, too.

Sorry, I got carried away. Probably because my wisdom teeth are gone.

My mom once lost a tooth eating corn on the cob. She and Dad were on the screened-in porch one summer night having dinner. She said to him, “You have corn on your chin.”

He said to her, “That’s nothing. You’re missing a tooth.”

My brother and I had a lot of fillings as kids. The dentist we went to let us choose a plaster of Paris figurine from a special box after every appointment. The figures were of the 12 disciples—or so the dentist said. It was hard to tell, as the figurines were only about 3 inches tall.

The disciples in the Bible were all from the Middle East where people are usually dark-skinned, but these were chalky white which came off on your hands. You could paint them. So then the disciples were blue, green, red, purple, you name it.

It took years to straighten out my theology, but I’m good now and all my permanent teeth came in fine.

Going to the dentist is not nearly as scary as it once was. The pain management aspect has improved immensely. Our dentist is king. I know this is a fact because his bills are royal.

I should make him a little “plaque” with a crown and sign it from Her Majesty.

I just finished a book on AI and its impact on humanity. It was billed as nonfiction but read more like science fiction. I don’t mean to spoil the ending, but here’s a hint as to who wins dominance—it’s a short name with two letters. First letter: A.

The future appears jaw-dropping, amazing and bone-chilling terrifying, all at the same time. I wonder what the next generation will do for jobs? Will a single teenager ever work fast food again?

Will there be a smart dryer one day that folds clothes while they’re still in the dryer for us? Will a smart toothbrush one day brush our teeth? Will our arms and hands eventually atrophy and disappear from lack of use?

Our brains may already be on the way out. Take a guess as to two of the most frequently asked questions on Google. Ready?

“What time is it?” and “What day is it?”

Our son and family have had one of the early “smart” vacuums for years. It is like a miniature UFO on wheels that rolls around the house bumping into furniture and knocking into pets and walls while picking up dirt. They emptied it a while back and sent a picture of the contents. It had rolled over a newspaper with my column and picture in it and tried to eat my head. And they call it smart.

One of our neighbors has a small robotic lawnmower. It, too, is like a miniature UFO on wheels randomly roaming across their lawn, cutting their grass. Or at least nibbling and ripping clumps of it. Are the neat lines of a push mower suddenly relics of yesterday?

On the amazing side of AI is a smart watch that can detect skin changes that precede epileptic seizures and alert wearers of an oncoming seizure.

Jaw-dropping is the Ghost Murmur technology used to locate the ejected U.S. serviceman hiding high in a mountain crevice in Iran. The technology can detect electromagnetic signals such as a human heartbeat over immense terrains while AI filters out background noise.

Sometimes when I start to answer an email from a reader, several bubbles pop up with possible responses such as “Thank you,” “Thanks,” or “I appreciate this,” already crafted for me.

They are all appropriate choices, but I would feel like a slacker answering a personal email with an AI prompt. So, I navigate past the prompts and keyboard in, “T-h-a-n- k  y-o-u.” I often let a few typos slide so recipients will know it was written by a human.

Amazing as technology is, there are some things AI will never rival. No computer program can rub noses with an infant, dry tears, hold a trembling child in a thunderstorm, sustain eye contact with a loved one, or hold the hands of the sick and dying.

Maybe humans will stay in the game after all.