Honey, Can You Answer the Tooth?
How ingenious! Oh, wait. I mean stupid!
First off, you know how annoying it is to be talking to someone who is chewing gum? Well, imagine what that would sound like from INSIDE the mouth. Even without gum, your mouth makes slurpy and snappy noises. That's why we breathe through our noses. We don't get those disgusting noises that way. (Only whistling sounds.)
If you've ever been in a room full of people with pagers (or cell phones), you know how fun it is to watch everyone when one person's communication device goes off. They all reach for their pagers at once. Wouldn't it be fun to watch a room full of phone-toothed people all try and answer their teeth at once? I don't even know how you answer a call with these things, but it can't be easy. Therefore, watching would be even more fun. That is, unless you're one of them with the phone-tooth.
How about sharing phone calls? For instance, you're talking to Fred through your tooth phone and Fred says, "Is Harold there? Let me talk to him." What do you do? Yank out your tooth and pass it to Harold? Put your jaw next to Harold's ear? Tell Fred that Harold is on your other tooth? Tell Fred he can talk to Harold on his own time? This tooth phone thing would be a huge strain on a friendship!
Okay, moment of truth. Technically, the device is only a receiver. You can't call with it or speak back to the callers.
It's still stupid. In fact, that's even more stupid.
Wouldn't people around you be able to hear it also? Do you really want to be in a crowded elevator and have someone call you through your tooth and tell you how his or her date went last night? Do you want to be standing next to Harriet and have someone call you and laughingly tell you "what Harriet did THIS time!"?
Also, sometimes you don't want to get a call from someone. You don't answer the phone for hours simply to avoid talking to this person. (Hi Mom!) Well, no more! We've all seen television programs or movies where a person calls another person, gets the answering machine and says "I know you're there ... pick up!" Well, you have no choice now. You have to listen. What are you going to say? "Oh, I must have been away from my mouth." Nope, you're trapped. Looks like you'll be spending THIS Friday night baby-sitting!
And what of cavities? I cringe at the pain when the tooth next to the phone tooth has a cavity. They hurt anyway. Amplify that with the sound vibrations from another tooth. "Hi, this is your dentist. I'll have to reschedule your appointment for next month." AAHHHH!
Do you really want to have people calling you without being able to hang up on them? Especially, if you're at church, an interview, a date, etc. There are certain places in which a phone call is inappropriate. (Again, though, it'd be funny for the rest of us.)
There are so many reasons that this is stupid yet only a few to make it worthwhile in any sense. I can only assume that someone dreamed this up while watching the episode of Gilligan's Island where the fillings in Gilligan's mouth align to create a radio. Once again, technology asked the question "Can we do it?" without asking the question "SHOULD we do it?" At least if the implant would have been in the ear it would have made a little sense. (Not much, mind you, but a little.)
If anyone still thinks this is a good thing, just think about this: imagine the fun you'll have when your tooth phone number ends up on a telemarketer call list.
What's more scary in situations like this is that whomever thought this up may have more ideas. A stomach fax? A butt-transmitter? Eyelid e-mail? The possibilities are only as limited as a person's features. In fact, we should have a warning system in place in case someone actually does creature more of these feature features. Like the severe weather alert on the television and radio. Since these are all pains in the posterior, that's where we could place the warning device. So, if you hear about any of these products being developed; let me know.
Via my Bumwarner.
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2002, Mark Wentz