Cubicle vs. Root Canal

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a personally meaningful experiment; I got to address the question, "Which is currently preferable, my work cubicle or a root canal?"

 36 years (so long!) ago, I shed my block, broke off the offensive line and ran a short pattern over the middle.  I was pretty well covered, but as I made eye contact with our calm and collected quarterback, I vigorously yelled while pointing to the ground.  He got the idea, threw low, and I made a sliding, touchdown catch to seal the win.  My momentum was abruptly interrupted by a forearm to the face.  I got off the ground, planted a front tooth back in place, spit some blood at the feet of my assailant, smiled and went back to my teammates.

After the game, my tooth seemed a little bit misplaced, but it didn't hurt, and it seemed firmly implanted. I barely gave it a second thought.  Over time it became obvious that the tooth was damaged, but it was functional and never bothered me, so it remained low on my list of personal maintenance priorities.

Recently, I embarked on a program to replace a stubborn baby tooth.  Despite my advanced age, this tooth was still with me.  The idea of this program was to avoid any future,  inevitable problems with it.  But this tooth was only a couple of positions away from the damaged tooth discussed above; and the tooth between is the wrong type,  in the wrong position, and needs some help, too.  So I agreed to address them all at once.

Hence, I found myself in the chair, awaiting my first root canal.  The dentist had convinced me the front tooth was, indeed, dead.  Even I could see the internal damage and changes on the X-ray.  As the technician prepared me, she asked how my day was; and I realized, I'd rather be doing this than addressing the work and atmosphere at my work cubicle.  At the moment, a root canal seemed preferable to my cubicle, and that gave me pause for thought.

After a week or more of thinking about this, overall, I think I have to call it a draw.  While my job isn't physically painful, it does take a mental toll.  That constant toll can wear me out, and it makes some of the current personality displays and individual dramas a bit less palatable.  On the other hand, while the root canal went well and I didn't have any immediate issues with pain directly from the procedures, I have had some unpleasant, bothersome quirks while healing. On a third hand, work often seems like a treadmill, but the dental work might represent progress and improvement.  

I think a tie-breaker might go to work, if only to avoid a conclusion that a root canal is the preferable choice.  I don't want to think that way!  But I can't quite seem to award a clear win to my cubicle, because my time in the chair, at the very least, provided another boat name candidate.  During the procedure, the dentist repeatedly asked the assistant for some canal lube.  I'm sure there's a perfectly good role for such a material during such a procedure, but my mind was elsewhere.  All I could picture was Canal Lube on the transom of a boat.  Maybe the owner was a dentist, and maybe hundreds of these procedures had paid for it.  Or maybe ...