The dentist’s office is a place where I’ll go in for a simple tooth cleaning, and find out I need my entire jaw reconstructed. Plumbers have mastered the “long, slow whistle,” and auto mechanics are masters of, “Well, there’s good news and bad news.” Your computer repairman can lapse into a string of vernacular that would leave Stephen Hawking in the dust.

The Ice Maker from Hell

“Well, I can go ahead and connect the ice maker for you, but it’ll be expensive. When they delivered the refrigerator, they bent the female Stratten joint leading to the anode rod, causing the thermocoupler to rub against the angle stop.”

“Now, I can do one of two things: I can replace the T&P valve and the no-hub connector, or I can redirect the Descanso fitting so that it’s more in line with the external flashing. That should allow the angular auger to fit properly against the yoke vent, but the work will cost you three times what the refrigerator is worth. What would you like to do?”

My beloved 1965 Chevy

“Hello. This is Bruce at Olag’s Grease Academy. I have some good news and bad news about your Chevy. I looked at all of the usual things like the bead seats, the caster shims, Remington bolts, CV joints, the cycling orifice tube, the torque converter valve, and the variable control relay modules. They all need to be replaced — that’s the good news.”

“The bad news is the only dealer where they stock the parts is located in Akron, Ohio, so it will take three weeks to special order them. After we replace those, we’ll have to look around for after-market components for the airflow sensor, ambient compressor switch, ballast resistor, and Cardan joints.”

“Of course, that still leaves the McPherson struts, the control vacuum regulator, the EGR valve position sensor, and the mixture control solenoid. They all need to be completely rebuilt or replaced. That should help the power to weight ratio but will mean we’ll have to machine the Bokelman coupler, the three-way Johnson converter the airflow modulator, and the high swirl combustion recycler. Hopefully, that should do it. Should I go ahead?”

Cleaner, Whiter Teeth

“Good morning. Well, Nadja has cleaned your teeth and taken a full set of x-rays, so I thought we’d discuss what we found.”

Your deciduous teeth are still present and have worn thin — down to their pulp chambers — which puts you at high risk for abscesses and sepsis. So, they’re going to have to come out right away. We can probably save your second bicuspid tooth on the left side, but the rest will have to be replaced with implants.”

“I also noticed severe periodontal disease around your impacted wisdom teeth. That’s probably why people tell you that your breath is so bad. You have a number of torn fenums and half a dozen nicked molars from opening beer cans with your teeth, so you should probably stop doing that.”

“The interproximal gaps between all of your teeth are preventing the growth of osteoblasts and osteoclasts, so I recommend that you see a periodontist as soon as possible. With a little luck, we should be able to irrigate and decontaminate the affected areas without having to immobilize your entire lower jaw — or at least until we can correct your occlusal plane.”

“You’ll be wearing an external appliance for six months until we can fly in a TMJ specialist from Switzerland to further study your condition. By the way, what kind of dental insurance do you have?”

Leave My RAM Alone

“The problem with your PC turned out to be a little more complex than I thought. I couldn’t pin down the source of the explosions and sparks flying out the back of the CPU when I turned it on, so I replaced the power supply with an Ultra X3 ULT 24,000 watt dual-channel model with a 135mm fan and SLI CrossFire certifications. It’s the same power supply that they use to launch the space shuttle.”

“Of course, there wasn’t enough room to mount it, so I had to remove two PCI expansion slots. To do that, I had to swap out the entire motherboard and repopulate it with new video, sound, and network cards, replace all of the SCSI controllers and upgrade the BIOS. Since I had gone that far, I thought I might as well replace and defrag the hard drives for better access time and partition them into their native configuration to speed up the print spooler.”

“Things worked pretty well until I discovered that the heat sink was melting through the metal case, so I replaced it with a top-of-the-line, water-cooled heat sink. You’ll have to get in touch with your plumber to run a water line into your office. Oh, and you’ll also need to buy a new monitor. I fried the old one.”