Yes, every once in a while the Pollstar.com regimen of sugar, sugar and more sugar catches up to us. After all, one needs lots of sugar when processing the dates for They Might Be Giants or updating the schedules for Liz Phair and Styx. Sugar builds strong eyes for catching changes in the routings for Depeche Mode and System Of A Down, and helps keep a body on his or her toes while proofing the itineraries for Tori Amos, Paul Oakenfold and MxPx. Of course, we don’t actually pour sugar on all of our food. Instead, we find that chewing raw sugar cane provides us with all the energy we need to run this Web site 24/7.

And while toothaches can be a pain, we’re awfully thankful that we still have a dental plan. After all, most dot-coms dropped their dental insurance when the bubble burst three years ago. Not us, however. Luckily our management realized that we couldn’t function without dental insurance, for hardly a week goes by when an artist such as Elton John or Anne Murray doesn’t drop by to take part in our afternoon, bare-knuckle boxing rituals. Yeah, dentures, root canals and fillings keep this company a hummin’ 365 days a year.

But we’d be lying if we said our dental coverage is the same as it was when stock in third-party tour-date Web sites dominated the Dow and Nasdaq. Gone are the days when our dentist would gas us as soon as we walked in the door, examine each and every tooth personally, then wash, wax and shine our molars before sending us on our merry way. No more lovely dental assistants holding our hands and rubbing our necks while we sipped champagne and munched on fine Russian caviar. Sigh…

However, we’re not complaining. After all, there are a lot of companies on the Web that shucked their dental plans a long time ago. But not Pollstar.com. We still have a dentist that will see us whenever our roots feel a little achy or our bicuspids need a good scraping. In fact, he even makes house calls, and as soon as he yanks this renegade incisor, we’re going to get right back to work entering dates for the Eagles, R.E.M. and Gov’t Mule. Just you watch. And we owe it all to the Pollstar.com dental plan.

However, there is one small part of the coverage that we’re not too crazy about.

You see, we have to supply the string for tying our tooth to the doorknob.