Question:
Does anyone know the source for the statement, "Taking from Peter to pay Paul"?
[I've also seen it as "Stealing from Peter..."]
Answer:
Ok, heres a story one of my friends told me at the weekend, and I bet that
someone out there has heard it before... He swore blind it was true and was
only second hand...
( pardon me if this is a FRS - Frequently Repeated Story )
There was this middle-aged woman who had an ache in her tooth. ( She reputedly
lived near the house where I lived when I was small, but I digress )..
So she goes to the family dentist to see whats up with her tooth. The dentist
looks in her mouth and hums and haws for a while, then he looks worried and
talks to his assistant in hushed tones... So he comes back and says,
"I have some bad news, Mrs Unlikely_story, all of your teeth are rotten, and
they all have to come out right now before any damage is done to your gums
and bones. I'm really sorry, but it will be for the best."
So the woman agrees to have all her teeth out ( as you do ). The dentist
puts her under with gas, and when she comes round, theres lots of blood in
her mouth. The dentist says "Your gums might bleed for a day or so, but if
it goes on bleeding any longer, come back and see me."
The woman goes home, but her gums bleed really badly for two days, so she goes
to the local casualty department, since she thinks it is more serious than
the dentist can handle. The doctor there examines her gums, and guess what...
There are the roots of her teeth left in her gums, and the dentist has just
snapped all the teeth off at the root...
So the police go round and arrest the family dentist, who has gone really
quite insane...
A teacher at school told me once about a chap who had to have major work done to his teeth.
All of the work involved fillings, and after the goodness-knows-how-many
fillings were done, the dentist proceeded with polishing them. When the
patient left the surgery, he apparently heard music playing softly, and to his
amazement, he also recognized a well-known DJ talking. It turned out to
be that the shapes of the fillings in his mouth somehow acted like
an FM radio receiver, and he was picking up a specific station.
Needless to say that the guy visited many psychologists, etc. before the dentist
eventually "cured" the man from his insanity by making some minor alterations
to the fillings with the polishing device.
