I recently spent more on a single dental cleaning than I've spent on my oral health for at least a decade.

The teeth that got professionally scrubbed belong to my dog.

Frankie's teeth looked great to me, but he'd never had them cleaned by the vet. He's approaching 5 years old, so I figured it was wise to get them checked out.

Given that I am a first-time dog owner, I based this decision on the poster in our vet's examination room that showed the various stages of periodontal disease and its effect on a dog's health. The vet agreed that it was a good idea.

I was a little apprehensive that the cleaning required general anesthesia, but Frankie is 16 pounds of fluffy stubbornness, and I'm sure sedation was necessary. The receptionist asked if I wanted the optional IV fluids during the procedure. It can prevent dehydration, which is more of a risk in older dogs, she said. I decided to spring for the fluids, even though Frankie is still fairly young.

I gave him a pep talk before I dropped him off: Be good and be brave, I said.

Maybe I was talking more to myself than him.

Four hours later, I called to see how Frankie was doing. The receptionist said that he had done great, and casually added that the vet had to do two simple extractions during the cleaning.

This did not seem like casual information to me. Apparently, two of his bottom front teeth were loose, so the vet removed them. I remember feeling the same way when my kids were small and the dentist reported that one of them had a cavity. It's a combination of guilt and shame: How did I cause this and why hadn't I noticed a problem?

Other than a less-toothy grin, Frankie seemed to be doing fine when I picked him up. They had shaved the lower part of his front right leg where the IV was inserted. The cleaning -- including fluids, two extractions and preventative antibiotics -- came to $517. At home, I noticed Frankie licking his shaved leg quite a bit. The next day the area looked red and a little raw. It was the weekend, so we went to our neighborhood pet store. I shelled out $18 for a bandage wrap and an antibiotic spray.

By Monday, his skin looked worse, so we went back to the vet. She prescribed a different spray, plus gabapentin (to make him drowsy and less interested in licking) and an anti-inflammatory medicine. Total: another $50.

She reapplied a bandage and suggested he might need a cone. By the time we got home, Frankie had ripped off the bandage. We went back to the pet store, where I dropped $23 on an inflatable neck pillow.

Frankie has never acted very bright when I've tried to train him to follow commands. It turns out he's not as dumb as he acts. He propped up his leg on his bed so he could continue licking it despite the neck pillow. The medicine finally kicked in enough to make him drowsy, and he only wanted to sleep in my lap.

This is when I turned to the internet for help. I checked the Facebook page for owners of this same breed and searched for dental cleanings. Several hours later, I was more confused than ever.

Frankie refused to tolerate the wrap on his leg. That night, I woke up a few times to the sound of him licking it despite the neck pillow. At 5 a.m., he came over and sat right next to my bed, staring at my face and whimpering until I took his neck pillow off.

I tried wrapping his leg again, using a larger nonstick gauze pad underneath. Within 15 minutes, he'd pulled the gauze out and torn it to bits. I decided to try a CBD "all day" calming bone (another $18) to take his mind off the obsessive licking. He finished it in 10 minutes. For those keeping track, the cleaning and subsequent issues have cost $626 to this point, plus six nights of sleep.

His skin is looking better, but he still starts licking when I take the neck pillow off.

The constant caretaking, coddling and worrying this past week took me back to when the kids would get sick as toddlers. They are on the cusp of young adulthood now. They don't let me fuss over them anymore.

Over the years, their perfect smiles also cost a small fortune.

At least Frankie will never get braces.

Imagine if Dr. Seuss memorialized our current political leaders.

The Sneetch who lived on a Florida beach might insist: I do not like Black history and books. I do not like them, Ron I am!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the unprecedented step of banning an Advanced Placement course on African American history -- an optional, college-level course for high schoolers -- for violating state law. DeSantis tried to justify his actions by railing against "indoctrination" because the class included texts from modern Black thought leaders and history teachers he didn't approve of. The course, developed by respected scholars and approved by the College Board, covers topics from literature, the arts, science, politics and geography related to Black Americans.

No state has ever refused to certify an AP course since the program began in 1952. Banning students' access to early college credit is the latest salvo in the war against educators and what they can teach and say.

Censoring an entire course for all the students in the state is a draconian step, but there are smaller repercussions of the conservative censorship wave rippling across the country. Earlier this month, NPR's "Planet Money" podcast was recording an episode in a third grade classroom in Ohio during a lesson in economics. The teacher was reading the Dr. Seuss book "The Sneetch and Other Stories" to the students. A child named Noah spoke up, connecting the theme of the book to history.

"It's almost like what happened back then, how people were treated," the student said. "Like, disrespected. ... Like, white people disrespected Black people, but then, they might stand up in the book."

The school administrator observing the lesson stopped the reading, saying they did not have parental approval to discuss race and they were uncomfortable with the discussion.

Is this what lawmakers are so afraid of? Is a third grader's observation about a Dr. Seuss book so dangerous and threatening that the entire lesson must be shut down?

Right-wing lawmakers in state legislatures, including Missouri's, have been whipped into a frenzy about "critical race theory" being taught to children, but it's a cover to stop conversations exactly like this. In real-life classrooms, this crackdown translates to teachers or books never mentioning race at all.

How can you teach even the most basic American history without discussing race? Hundreds of years of America's history and violence were predicated on the belief that whites were superior to other races.

This isn't new information. But it's important to know and understand the truth.

This is how politicized culture wars end up playing out in classrooms: School administrators and teachers become so afraid of offending someone's feelings, and of threats of criminal charges, that they will self-censor what is taught. People have literally called the cops about books in school libraries.

Ironically, it was conservatives who were upset about Dr. Seuss for an entirely different reason not that long ago. In 2021, the Dr. Seuss Foundation said it would stop publishing six titles that included outdated images depicting East Asian characters as offensive caricatures.

At that time, warriors crying about "cancel culture" lashed out about the Great Cancellation of Dr. Seuss. But when an actual school lesson involving a Seuss book literally gets canceled, it's been crickets from the cancellation crowd.

Granted, intellectual consistency isn't a hallmark of partisans.

Teachers have been dismantling their classroom libraries for fear of violating state laws. Educators have been fired or pushed out because they support diversity and inclusion programs. Now, an AP course gets shut down in Florida.

More crickets.

There's a lesson here in the words of the Lorax: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

At least there's some advice from Dr. Seuss kids are still allowed to read.

Missouri lawmakers kicked off the year tackling a dubious issue: covering up women's exposed arms.

Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives, disturbed by the sight of female biceps, made national news last week. The GOP-controlled House adopted a stricter dress code requiring female legislators and staffers to cover their shoulders.

Some writers had fun with the irony: A state that worships guns won't let women bare arms.

The lazy pun could be amusing if we weren't so tired of being national laughingstocks. Missouri frequently finds itself in the national spotlight for cringeworthy reasons. We had a former state health director tracking the periods of Planned Parenthood patients. One of our senators raised a fist in support of Jan. 6 protestors, then ran like Chicken Little when they attacked the Capitol. Our other newly elected senator sued China and local school districts during the pandemic, and made us the first state with a near-total ban on abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

We're not sending our best, and we know it.

The latest embarrassment about legislating women's sleeves highlights our peculiar brand of Missourah misogyny -- it's powered by Republican women. Every single statewide elected official in Missouri is a white, Republican man. Women hold less than a third of the seats in the Missouri House. Those looking for the best way to cozy up to power know exactly where it rests.

It was a GOP woman, Rep. Ann Kelley, who proposed tightening the dress code for the ladies. Last year, Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman was pushing for laws to prevent women from leaving the state to get an abortion. Once they've got our uteruses in their clutches, someone has to up the ante. These foot soldiers for the patriarchy will join history books alongside the women who crusaded against giving women the right to vote.

The same religious believers mandating that a girl must bear her rapist's baby also perpetuate the idea that the female body is inherently sinful. Whether it's our exposed hair or bare arms -- and whether via school dress codes that target girls more than boys or via police-enforced hijabs in Iran -- the push to cover us up comes from the same place. The root of the argument: Women cannot be trusted to dress themselves.

It's not about the professionalism of a woman lawmaker wearing a sleeveless dress. It's about who controls what a woman can wear and deem it acceptable. It's about women with a little power signaling to those with more power that they're on the same team. This message becomes even more urgent when more people challenge the assumptions keeping outdated rules in place.

Reporters and lawmakers used to be required to wear dresses and blouses with sleeves upon entering the U.S. House chamber. In 2017, a group of bipartisan female lawmakers protested the rule, and then-Speaker Paul Ryan's office conceded that the dress code should be updated. The U.S. Senate also amended its rules.

Now, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the country's most well-known Republican women lawmakers, is frequently seen in sleeveless attire. She wouldn't be allowed in Missouri's House in those outfits.

The rest of the country isn't laughing with us.

They're laughing at us.