The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Gingivitis xxiii-xxxi

In the garden of the Creator, said the Father of Teeth unreliably, there are only two crops: namely carrots and sticks, and He favoured the sticks. I did my best, said the Father of Teeth, to widen His horticultural horizons, first by suggesting that His garden might benefit from a potato or two and then by smuggling them in while He was off smiting somebody. But it never worked, said the Father of Teeth, because He could spot anything that didn't look like a carrot or a stick from halfway across Creation and if anything looked like a potato or a radish, or even if He suspected a carrot of getting ideas above its station, He would send His angels to uproot it and cast it into outer darkness, the place of wailing and gnashing of roots. Whether because He preferred the dead and dry to the living and juicy, as He always did with scriptures and women; or whether He disapproved of all those tuberous reachings into the chthonic depths, or whether He just found the sticks a bit crunchier, said the Father of Teeth, He just always preferred the sticks; I couldn't do a thing about it.