a tongue named Fred

Daughter #1 is a professional teeth scraper. She finds immense joy in digging around in people's mouths and ridding them of plaque. She started her dental career as an assistant in our family dentist office...of which her mother (moi!) is a patient. I can remember, on one occasion, while she was squirting and sucking, that she yelled at me to control my tongue! To which the dentist (a family friend) replied..."Sometimes tongues have a mind of their own!" Truer words were never spoken! This week I was back in the dentist's office...sans Daughter #1 who works for another dentist now. And while the dentist and hygienist were scraping and poking and flossing and drilling...my tongue was pushing and prodding and feeling it's way around the new and smoother contours of my maxillary area. I'd try to control it but it would inevitably find it's way to the dental mirror (I'm sure it was just trying to be friends!) or the newly polished teeth (ohhh...shiny and smooth!) and I could almost hear it saying "stay away from the drill! stay away from the drill!" It was then and there that I decided that if my tongue is going to have a mind of it's own...well, it needs it's own name. I think I'll call it Fred! *I seriously tried to get a picture of the aforementioned "Fred"...but a tongue is not an attractive thing to photograph! So you get a giraffe tongue instead!