I am getting over a bump in the road. The last few days I’ve been fogged in with a cloud bank of funk that is not my usual cheerful self. For example, just the other day I was wondering what it would be like to take this laptop and chunk it through the screen window on my back porch, watch it crash on the rocks in the edge of the woods, and heave a Molotov cocktail at it to watch it go up in flames.

See what I mean?

This is not normal well-adjusted behavior. Had the Georgia Forestry guys showed up to plow a fire brake around my property, I would have had a hard time explaining exactly how the woods caught fire. The insurance adjuster would not have been happy when I filed a claim on my smoldering house. Had all that happened, I would have had regrets.

I think life is full of bumps in the road. Newsflash, right? I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

You’re sailing right along fairly content with life, then the truck breaks down and leaves you stranded. The dishwasher throws an error code and beeps incessantly in the middle of the night. Your bladder gets you up at 2am and 4am every night and you feel like you haven’t slept in weeks. The doctor’s appointments pile up. The little jobs around the house you need to get done aren’t getting done.

Pretty soon, you’re like a crazy man who thinks about ways to destroy his laptop.

The whole laptop thing is about my writing. It’s not been easy lately. I could make excuses and try to explain why my focus has been off kilter, but it would just sound like whining.

Oh, why not?

Putting Book #2 together and getting it ready to publish put a significant extra load on my already packed retirement schedule. I worked on the book so much that I didn’t feel like writing two stories a week. Some days I didn’t feel like writing at all. It was like Georgia Bred had become a job.

I’d try to get something done around the house, maybe work in the shop. But no! It was time to write another story. Write about what? I don’t know. Gotta get a story out. But I promised myself I’d pull up the bushes in front of the house and rework my landscape this fall. Nope! Ain’t got time for that. Gotta get another story written today.

I told you it would sound like whining. I really apologize for this. But, at least, you have some idea of why I wanted to do unspeakable things to an innocent piece of plastic technology.

The important thing is to know that I’m better now. And if you want to know how I got over the bump, I’ll tell you. I went and had a root canal done on Wednesday.

It’s not like I just decided, “Ya know, what I need is a good old fashioned invasive endodontological rotor-rooter done. That’ll snap me out of it.”

I’ve had my dental visit on the calendar for three weeks. But the timing couldn’t Have been better. If I’ve learned anything in life, physical pain can take a man’s mind off his worries. He goes along worried about the bills, worried about his kids, worried about how complicated life seems, and then he smashes his thumb with a hammer while working in the shop. Suddenly, he’s not thinking about all that other stuff anymore.

I had the first appointment of the day. The door was locked and the lights off when I got there.

“Sorry,” the lady said. “I usually get here by 7:30 but I was kind of in a funk this morning.”

“I understand,” I said.

This is my second root canal this year, so I’m already prepared for the ordeal. The doc is particularly chatty today. Or maybe he is this way will all his first patients of the day. He’s asking me about Diversified Trees and what it is that we do. He doesn’t realize that I’ve retired since I sat in this chair last spring.

He has my left cheek pinched between two fingers on the inside and his thumb on the outside and he’s tugging at my flesh like he’s pulling taffy. All the while he’s pile driving a 3” needle into my upper left gum and asking me questions about some trees he’d like to have installed at his house.

“What do you think about one of those cypress kind of trees? I’m thinking I’d like to line my driveway with 20 of those. Is that a good idea?”

I gave him my best answer. “Ugh meph wiiky #@$$% pozubl fotr ur tees.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he said.

I won’t bore you will all the details about grinding and drilling and choking and how the numbness began to wear off before he got done. How I had my mouth pried open for an hour and had to play mental games with my nerves to keep from going into panic mode. Those of you who know already know all too well.

When he finished, he asked me to get up out of the chair and walk over to the window. I still had the bib around my neck. Drool running down the numb side of my mouth. We stood at the large window that looks out on the landscape around his office and he pointed over to the left.

“What kind of tree is that?”

I asked for a piece of paper so I could write it down for him. I handed it to him.

He said, “That’s what I thought it was. I just couldn’t remember the name.”

He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to me. His instructions were to stop by the front desk on my way out.

“Funny thing,” he said. “I’ve got five other root canals today. Four of them are the same #14 molar that you had done.”

Poor folks, I thought. I wondered if he would be getting advice on his investments, or maybe what colors to paint his walls, or the pros and cons of metal versus asphalt roofing materials. Hands deep in some mouth, asking questions to which the answers would be, “gluf ah ee koo ga ehk ime.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” the doc would say.

I walked up to the front desk. My left side lips felt like somebody had taped balloons to my face. My left cheek and jaw had a pretty stiff throb going on. I handed the lady behind the desk my piece of paper. She smiled politely.

“Today’s bill is equal to two of your Social Security checks and then some. How would you like to pay?”

That hammer hit my thumb pretty hard.

So, when you’re feeling a little dumpy, just go get a root canal. By the time I left the funk in my head was replaced by the pain in my mouth and wallet. Life didn’t seem so bad.

And I was ready to write again.