Quote of the Day (S.J. Perelman, on His Childhood Dental Care)

“Ever since Nature presented me at birth with a set of thirty-two flawless little pearls of assorted sizes, I never once relaxed my vigilant stewardship of same. From the age of six onward, I constantly polished the enamel with peanut brittle, massaged the incisors twice daily with lollipops, and chewed taffy and chocolate-covered caramels faithfully to exercise the gums. As for consulting a dentist regularly, my punctuality practically amounted to a fetish. Every twelve years I would drop whatever I was doing and allow wild Caucasian ponies to drag me to a reputable orthodontist. I guess you might say I was hipped on the subject of dental care.”—American humorist and screenwriter S.J. Perelman (1904-1979), “Dental or Mental, I Say It’s Spinach,” in The Most of S.J. Perelman (1958)