Take my dentist, Jerry Goldfine. I've been seeing him for years. He's Mister Labcoat, straight as an arrow, solid as a rock. Still, during my last visit to his office, he threw me a few curves. And it was just to have a little filling replaced.

"Say, Mike," he greeted me, "I've been reading some of those computer articles of yours in the newspaper. Good stuff!"

"Why, thanks, doc," I said. The nice thing about being a reporter is that people see your work.

"Yes, I've certainly been doing a lot of reading lately. I have been feeling that the parade is passing me by. Goodness, you have some nasty plaque buildup here."

"I've been busy," I said as well as I could, what with his fingers pulling my cheek open.

"That's what I was saying," Dr. Goldfine said. "While I fill teeth, other people are having adventures in the field of technology. Reading your column, and all the magazines and articles out there -- well, it just got me to thinking. So this fall I broke down and wrote a big check, bought a big new multimedia PC, loaded with Windows 95, Microsoft Office, the works."

I nodded my approval, that being the best I could do with the suction tube hooked over my lip.

"Then I started doing a little netsurfing of my own," he said. "I asked on Usenet how other dentists were adapting to the new technologies. I found out that a lot of practitioners are feeling the same way I am. We're all yearning for something more "Future Shoes".

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "I love teeth. Teeth are my life. But it just seems like there must be something more.

"That's when it hit me. In a virtual age what use is all this infrastructure? Chairs, sinks, office equipment, file cabinets. That's no way to live. I want to be out on the cusp, like you are."

I tried to gesture with my eyes that I thought he had a fine setup, and that many times I had wished for the very stability he enjoyed, but it was no use. He had to get this off his chest.

"So I put myself to thinking. What do I know that no one else knows? That's how I came up with gold."

I started gagging, but he suctioned me out very effectively.

"Dentists need gold. But we're locked into existing channels. Expensive, because the gold has to pass through so many hands before it gets to your molars. But I'm thinking: How about a dentist that actually goes out, finds the gold, mines the gold himself, sells it directly via the World Wide Web at a 5% discount, and pockets the middleman's profit?"

I started pulling at the tube and banging on the chair arms, but the Novocain was starting to have an effect on me. I sat slumped in the chair, a thread of drool hanging from a lip that felt it was the size of the fender of a '68 Pontiac Bonneville.

"So I ran into this guy on the net from Tasmania. Turns out he runs an infrared helicopter geosurvey crew. I tell you, we had ourselves quite a discussion in e-mail."

I was just lying back in the chair now, gazing into the bright light, taking it all in.

"No one pans for gold any more. That's old hat. You locate it through sonar readings now. Terry -- he's my guy in Tasmania -- he's flown the length and breadth of the island, and he says the place is just sparkling with gold from a couple hundred feet.

"So -- that's it."

"That's what?" I thought. I had to think it. I couldn't say it.

"That's what I'm going to do." he said. "I'm going mobile. I bought a nifty new notebook computer, with a cushioned steel case, and wireless everything. They make these things so rugged today, you can drag them into the bush, up an escarpment. And if the battery runs down, why, you can run them off the chopper batteries."

I smiled, my mouth full of chrome.

"Now this may hurt a bit," he said as the drill began to spin. "Well, that was all I needed to hear. I put the practice up on the block and cherry-picked the best offer. You're going to like the new guy. This is my last week. Thursday we set sail for Van Dieman's Land."

"And you know what -- I owe it all to you. You wrote those stories of entrepreneurs and technology. They inspired me. Some day maybe you can write up my story. I've got the perfect headline for you already. 'Jerry Goldfine -- from painless to wireless in three tenths of a second.'"

I moaned between the shrieks of the drill. It was a good subhead, all right. "But I've got lots of ideas. Hold still, there, got it. Like, why don't you and me do something together? Your writing and my expertise in tooth and gums and the whole soldier-of-fortune, gold-exploration thing. I was thinking we could start an e-zine, for people who share those interests."

I nodded weakly. I was all a-tingle at the prospect.

"It's going to be great. Now, before you leave, I want you to meet the new dentist. I think you're gonna like him. He used to be a rodeo clown. Now sit up and spit."

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Stimulate the economy, give a poet a dollar.