The Walrus

The walrus had a humongous toothache, if you can call a tusk a tooth. “No dentist for me, they’re all a fake,” he cried, “nobody’s going to mess inside my mouth.”

            

“Either you go to a dentist,” said a salmon, “or you’ll go insane.”

            

“I won’t go. Imagine them trying to fit me in a chair! No, you’ll have to drag and haul me, over my own dead body.”

            

“We can’t do that,” a beluga said, “you’re much too heavy.”

            

“All I know,” the walrus said, “is they’ll pull it, for sure, and sell it to someone on modern E-bay. It’s ivory, ivory, rare precious ivory—driving good surgeons to extra keen knavery. I won’t go. And , when I think of what they’ll use for a drill! No, no, I’m afraid, and I won’t go!”

            

They said there was an expert, worldwide renowned in—root canal; he could save the tusk, root branch and enamel.

            

Walrus said, “You must be out of my mind! I’ve been in every ocean, plus the Bering Sea. I don’t need another body of water in me. Never!”

            

And that was that. But can you believe this?—some things spontaneously happen— Walrus finally healed on his own. And he wanted this written down: “‘the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth’ is my motto,” and he didn’t generalize any further.

            

But his friends did—

            

Moral:             If you don’t have pluck, you need lots of luck.