Learn the proper numbering system of the teeth and discuss them that way and he’ll think you’re a genius. It was perceptive for him to identify you that way but dentists do have the advantage of studying people closely. I should finish my master’s in Eng but even if I did nobody could guess from my appearance which is like an old truckdriver which is not wrong.

My favorite English teacher in college was from Oxford, Mississippi and he would see Faulkner all the time around town but especially on the main square around the courthouse where Bill would stand for hours staring at the building and sipping from a tall glass of whiskey. He was actually writing, in his mind, as he stood. Everyone knew who he was and even the children knew not to bother him. My teacher went on to be a Shakespeare scholar and a Faulkner scholar. He filled up two blackboards one day with family trees of F’s characters and the interesting intermarriages between them.