Dental Genes

During the Thanksgiving holiday soon after Dave and I started dating we scheduled a call home. As Thanksgiving is the main holiday celebration in my household, almost the entire family had gathered. The evening we called, I could picture the family beginning to gather around the breakfast table, Gram brewing her tea, others lingering around the food, about to begin a day of cooking and eating. Thanksgiving really is my favorite time of the year in upstate NY.

But this particular year I was in China, and not lingering around the kitchen table in NY. Instead, Dave and I called home for his debut skype conversation with my family. They knew we were getting serious (we had been dating now for over a month, right?) and all were quite curious about this new man in my life-- and perhaps a little worried I had met a vagabond hippie in China. Naturally, Gram wanted to know what kind of stock Dave was from (and if he would be able to earn a salary that could support her vagabond hippie granddaughter if they were to get married) and so asked "So Dave, what does your dad do?" When he answered "oh, he's a dentist",

"Oh, well there's still time for you to go back to dental school" she quickly replied, relieved there was some potential for job and financial security in the family.

Needless to say, we both had a chuckle. Mostly because we didn't see much of a possiblity for dental school in the future, and in fact we didn't see much green stuff in the kind of future we were interested in.

But now there's Josie. She begs to brush her teeth all day long. And all night. Perhaps she will carry on the dental tradition in the Coons family?