I am, as mentioned, a small-town lawyer.

This is the Christmas season in a small town.  It is the time of year when people — clients, neighbors, business associates, and others — go flitting about town delivering plates of delightfully decadent snacks.  Most of it falls under the heading of Death by Sugar and Cholesterol, but sometimes it will actually have nutritional value (those veer towards Death by Sodium).

What I’m getting at, here, is that it’s all insanely good food, made personally by people you know, and by the end of the season you can easily find yourself carrying another 10-15 pounds you didn’t have the day before Thanksgiving.

Unless, of course, you’re wearing your Invisalign trays, and it’s just too much of a pain in the wazzoo to pop them out, snarf down a chunk or two of peanut butter fudge (with walnuts) . . . and then have to go through the whole ritual* of flossing, scrubbing, and brushing.  In that case you moon about the table in the office kitchen, speculating on whether it would be (damned subjunctive mood) more enjoyable to get outside some country ham biscuits, or the peanut butter fudge aforesaid, or the home-made brittle, or the fruitcake, or the oatmeal raisin cookies, or the . . . . stop it! leave me alone! I can’t take it any more!!!

But none of it is for thee, O Wearer of Invisaligns.  You must wander on, past open doors with your co-workers wading into the goodies and chit-chatting back and forth on how they just love it when Mrs. So-and-So breaks out the cookie sheets and get the wind properly in her sails.

I  can tell it’s going to be a long Christmas season.

*[The other evening, as I was ruefully scrubbing the trays for what felt like the 157th time that day, I realized that what I most felt like was a monk, wearily chanting away at the liturgical hours, 24/7/365.  Matins, lauds, prime, sext, none, vespers, compline, and so forth, endlessly, in a loop.  I don’t know if they were into orthodontia at Cluny, but for eternal dreariness I’ll back Invisaligns against the Rule of St. Benedict any day.]