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inertia  [in-ER-shuh] [noun] — The tendency of a body to remain at rest or in motion unless acted upon by an external force; disinclination to move or act.

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Back when my kids were little, we lived in Lawrenceville, Georgia, about 30 miles north of Atlanta. We moved there in 1979. The boys grew up there, graduated from high school there.

During those years, a dental practice in Lawrenceville took care of all four of us. Even after I got divorced and the boys went off to college, I continued going there.

In fact, I went to that practice until about a year ago, when I got fed up with the long drive to Lawrenceville and found a dentist closer to home.

The drive had become a royal pain. I dreaded it. It was, if you’ll forgive me, like pulling teeth.

Yes, I’m aware that thousands of people make the same commute every day at the height of rush hour. But I’m retired, and I don’t do traffic jams any more.

Lawrenceville is the county seat, and even in the old days, it was a busy place. But over the years, it got significantly worse, changing from an overgrown country town to a bloated, crowded, gridlocked abomination.

The chief cause was development on a massive scale. During the 1980s, the city and county politicians, en masse, climbed in bed with the developers. I assume they all got rich. The county became wall-to-wall strip malls and subdivisions.

Today, I live about 30 miles north of Lawrenceville, and I actively avoid going down there. Among the exceptions: a dental appointment every six months.

The thing is, Lawrenceville is only half an hour down I-85 from Jefferson. But after I get there, it takes another half hour to make my way across town to the dental office. Owing to all the traffic, traffic lights, and construction, the place simply is a nightmare.

Then, after the dental appointment, I would get to repeat the procedure in reverse.

So, you ask, what accounted for my loyalty to that dental practice over the years? Why did I endure that depressing drive for as long as I did? Two reasons.

First, I am a creature of habit. I have a tendency to establish routines and adhere to them. Compulsively so. It’s a character flaw.

The second reason was my friendship with a hygienist who works in the office.

She was like an old family friend. She had watched the boys grow up. She was always anxious to see the latest family photos and hear my regular reports (every six months, to be precise) about their families and careers.

Every few years, they assigned me a new dentist — usually some kid who just joined the practice — but my friend the hygienist was a constant presence. She was there on every visit, without exception, looking down through her mask, probing and scraping.

At the end of an appointment a couple of years ago, for reasons I don’t recall, the subject of politics came up. Never before had she and I discussed politics.

When it came to light that I am a sincere, lifelong, bleeding-heart liberal, she was incredulous.

“Rocky,” she said with genuine alarm, “I can’t believe it! How can you support Obama? His election was illegal. He’s not a Christian. He wasn’t even born here!”

I was equally stunned. I had known the woman for 30-plus years. She was my friend. I never dreamed that Obama Derangement Syndrome lurked in the dark recesses of her brain.

I was totally caught off-guard. To my discredit, I failed to stand my philosophical ground. I totally wussied out.

“Well,” I heard my cowardly self saying, “Good people don’t become politicians. Obama will be gone soon, and people will be complaining about the next president.”

My dissembling did not placate her. “But really,” she said in an earnest whisper as we walked toward the check-out desk, “Doesn’t Benghazi bother you?”

I was greatly relieved to be out of there and back in the traffic.

As you can imagine, politics never again came up between us. At my next couple of appointments, our relationship was as genial as ever, at least on the surface.

But, in the wake of the incident, I began thinking anew about finding a more convenient dentist. Dammit, a routine dental checkup shouldn’t consume an entire day.

That, and I was still reeling from seeing my friend in such an unexpected light.

Finally, I acted on my impulse and asked my periodontist for a referral. She recommended a dentist in Athens, who turned out to be a great guy with a nifty new office and a friendly staff, and I’m perfectly happy there.

When I told my friend the hygienist I was moving on, she expressed regret and told me to stay in touch.

But honestly, she didn’t seem surprised.