Subject: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Oct 8, 2002 1:46 PM

God damn gold crown costs $700 and the god damn insurance only pays
$200 of it?!?!? What the...?

All week I had been chewing to the left because a molar on the right
felt like it was about to split right down the middle. It has an old
metal filling from the '50s and the other two teeth like that already
broke, both on a Friday night when I was out of town. Since Friday
night comes in 4 days, I decided to go to the dentist. (He mentioned
that HE is out of town this weekend.)

My theory was correct, and in a month they'll have a nice gold crown
that'll keep the dang tooth from falling to pieces. In the meantime
they put a plastic temporary crown on it. My mouth is still all numb
from the novocaine or whetever they use now. Also numb is my credit
card.

FIVE HUNDRED!! Just for a TINY FAKE BODY PART!

The ceramic ones are cheaper but apparently this crown must be too THIN
to be ceramic.

I have been reading an Asimov novel about robots. The paperback cover
shows famous robot R. Daneel Olivaw, who looks human on the outside,
exposing his mechanical innards to a less humaniform robot.

I envy that robot. He can get replacements. For ANY part, even his
memory, if he's been keeping back-ups. Just a TOOTH TOP costs me $500,
and if it's a SOFT part like a liver or a heart, or a lung, well I
guess I'm plumb out of luck. Perhaps even *shit* out of luck. "Surfing
the Fuck Plane," to quote The Nensletic One.

So here I sit, sucking down yogurt so as not to accidentally chew my
tongue off in the numbness, envisioning all the increased bodily
maintenance time that I'll have to spend as more parts of me fall off
or rot. I have it EASY so far. I can still dance spastically till 3 in
the morning, trek all the way across Burning Man or Starwood
repeatedly, even walk around my block. BUT FOR HOW LONG?!? Just the
thought of it makes me want to rush to the supermarket right now, using
my car, then nab one of those motorized wheelchair-carts they let the
obese people use, so that I'll DRIVE even while shopping, and what I'll
buy will be BEER and DONUTS. That's what THINKING about falling apart
makes me WANT to do.

But, I'll probably WIMP OUT and just work on the new product and then
go for a walk later like usual.

$500!!

I was ABOUT to spend that anyway on a DVD burner. But last week the
Gription Clench DONATED one.

If those fuckers hadn't have given me that $500 DVD burner, my tooth
probably wouldn't have broken.

Dobbs or God wants me to always be about $500 in the hole. They may
have a point. If I didn't need $500 I probably wouldn't hurry and
finish the 4 new CD/CD-Rs that I am now going to hurry FASTER to
finish.

FUCK THAT "BOB"!!

On the other hand, while they worked on me they let me watch the latest
Ron Fricke (Koyanisqaatsi) film, "Baraka." Seeing all those 3rd world
peasants rag-picking in city dumps that stretched to the horizon
reminded me that in China, they pull your bad tooth with pliars and no
painkiller, at a roadside booth. "BOO HOW," as they say over there. And
they have to burn their DVDs manually, one bit at a time.

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Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: Legume <no-email@fuckthespammers.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:

> I envy that robot. He can get replacements. For ANY part, even his
> memory, if he's been keeping back-ups. Just a TOOTH TOP costs me $500

You could just have the fucker yanked for about $75. It's not like you PAID
for the fucking thing, and you've been using it for half a fuckin' century.

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Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: headkase <psykoexgirlfriend@hotmail.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:

> FIVE HUNDRED!! Just for a TINY FAKE BODY PART!
>> The ceramic ones are cheaper but apparently this crown must be too THIN
> to be ceramic.

thats BULLSHIT

i would go and see another dentist, you think thats what they tell them
movie stars who want picture perfect white teeth.

but on the up side
gold crowns are so cool, i would have gotten one if i could have afforded
it, but i is left with this white ceramic number which looks like it always
was a part of my mouth.

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Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: glassgnost <dahackerSPAMBLOCKED@socal.rr.com>

Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:

> God damn gold crown costs $700 and the god damn insurance only pays $200
> of it?!?!? What the...?

HMO's are the *heart* of the CON. YOU of all people should know this.

> My theory was correct, and in a month they'll have a nice gold crown
> that'll keep the dang tooth from falling to pieces. In the meantime they
> put a plastic temporary crown on it. My mouth is still all numb from the
> novocaine or whetever they use now. Also numb is my credit card.
> FIVE HUNDRED!! Just for a TINY FAKE BODY PART!

I just have my dentist pull the little bastards. If he balks, I just hold
out until it's so seriously degraded he has no more choice in the matter.
In fact, we've done enough rounds of that game now that he no longer
resists. I'm just gonna get implants after they've been on the market a
bit longer and the prices come down.

Now, the one thing I *did* cheerfully spend money on was an elective
procedure to have the suspensory tissue lasered out from under my tongue,
so I can do the Gene Simmons thang. A gift for the missus...

You've gotta get your priorities straight.

Interpreter, n.:
One who enables two persons of different languages to
understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

Legume <no-email@fuckthespammers.com> wrote:
> "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com> wrote:

> > I envy that robot. He can get replacements. For ANY part, even his
> > memory, if he's been keeping back-ups. Just a TOOTH TOP costs me $500
>
> You could just have the fucker yanked for about $75. It's not like you PAID
> for the fucking thing, and you've been using it for half a fuckin' century.

That's EXACTLY what you said about my van 5 years ago, and I'm still
driving it.

If gingerly.

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Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: Legume <no-email@fuckthespammers.com>

I bet Two Beans said it more recently than that...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: iDRMRSR <idrmrsr@subgenius.com>

STANG:
>>mmmphhh..oww...OWW! snipped<<

$500, your end, ain't such a bad deal nowadays. I'm sure you learned
about the $295 it costs to have the nerve killed and the $75 it costs
for the Post and Core. The hardware is only a part of the overall
reaming.

And you'll quickly find out about that SHORDURPERCROWN, namely how
shordur it really is. Here, have some taffy.

Did the dentist (really at these prices I think they call themselves
ENDODONTISTS) at any time ask you if it was SAFE?

B O N O M O bonomo!

http://www.oldtimecandy.com/bonomo.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!!
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

glassgnost <dahackerSPAMBLOCKED@socal.rr.com> wrote:
> Rev. Ivan Stang wrote:
>
> > God damn gold crown costs $700 and the god damn insurance only pays $200
> > of it?!?!? What the...?
>
> HMO's are the *heart* of the CON. YOU of all people should know this.

That's why I brush and floss.

It turned out it was because this dentist who isn't on the FULL PLAN,
If we had played along fully and gone to the approved clinic they'd pay
for most of it, but my wife has been with this dentist for years.

Well it's REALLY because of evolution, fate, God and the Devil, but I
have more immediate rows to hoe than trying to change any of those.

> You've gotta get your priorities straight.

I'm just trying to keep all the parts I was born with. I've already
lost 4 teeth, one of my marbles and all of my innocence, so I'm hanging
on to what's left for deal life. So to speak, again.

The Grim Circumcist shall be outrun by this Sacred Scribe.

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Original file name: FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS!! - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44