Dentally Incorrect

Old Dr. McDonald Had a Moth

Dr. McDonald comes into the exam room and asks the moth, “What seems to be the problem?”

“Hello, doc,” the moth says with a deep sigh. “Where do I begin? I’ve been working at the same job for nearly 20 years for the same boss and I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t think my boss knows, either, but he knows he has power over me, and I think that’s all he cares about … and yet I can’t bring myself to leave.”

The dentist, a bit puzzled, nods and starts to say, “Well, what—”

“I wake up every day in a melancholy fog and turn to this stranger in my bed, this woman I don’t know anymore. And then my youngest, my daughter, she got sick this past year and I haven’t seen her smile in so long that I’ve forgotten what it looks like when she does.”

The dentist clears his throat and begins again. “So, this is about your daughter?”

The moth shakes his head, waving off the question. “The worst part of all, doc, is my son, my first-born. I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say it, when I look at him, I just see the weaker parts of myself that I wish had never been passed onto him—the same cowardice I see in my own reflection. You see, doc, I feel like I’m just stuck in a web, unable to escape this frigid hellscape of an existence.”

“I see,” Dr. McDonald says. “You have a lot going on and I can see that you’re very troubled, but why on Earth haven’t you gone to see a psychiatrist? Why are you here? I’m a dentist.”

“Well,” the moth says. “Because your light was on.”