My old eyeglasses broke several times, and I rebuilt them several times with melted plastic until they looked pretty goofy. Then they finally disintegrated a couple years ago. I was kind of happy about it and decided I didn't need eyeglasses. It would be like I was in a Monet painting, I thought. It was, and I was okay with it for about a year. But I started feeling embarassed because I couldn't recognize my own friends at a distance, and they were thinking I was "stuck up." I decided I wanted to see more clearly again, and I was mentioning it to a friend. Another friend, Holly, who worked at the local thrift store, overheard our conversation and told me they had droves of old eyeglasses people donated, and to go and see if any fit my prescription and I could keep them for free. So I tried on several pairs, and the one that I thought looked most cool (Buddy Holly glasses) happened to be just my prescription. I've been wearing them since.
I have gotten a couple cavities the past decade because I've eaten too many sweets. I've been daily packing them with pinion pine pitch, which is both a protectant and antiseptic, killing caries germs. The summer I worked on the fishing boat I slacked in packing my first cavity in a molar and it grew until the pain was excruciating for about a day. I found my pinion pitch and packed it again, and the pain vanished. But by that time the cavity was pretty deep, and half my tooth eventually broke off (without pain). I still have half a molar. Another tooth recently developed a cavity, which I've also been packing with pitch. It hasn't been hurting me.
Okay, I must be honest and say that teeth and mosquitos are two things that get me to question the perfection of nature. But I'm still looking at them as great teachers, even though I haven't quite learned my lesson from them, yet. I feel that a teacher will not leave, must not leave, or we can't leave the teacher and graduate, until we have learned our lesson. So, teeth and mosquitos, what are we learning from you?