I ran across this short story I wrote a couple years ago - just a week before I get to go to the dreaded dentist again. Great.... Dental Disorder The moment I had avoided thinking about all week was here. Starting way before a person should be out of bed, I got up early to get ready for the dentist….one of my all-time least favorite things in life. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t usually even start breathing til 9am, but I had to take the open appointment. So, I drove myself to the dentist office and waited for my lucky number to be called….oh joy. There was no turning back now. I needed a crown, and I knew this wasn’t going to be fun. They called my name and as I think I muttered “oh alright”, I reluctantly headed down the hall towards the death chair, and got as comfortable as I could. Now come on, they can put heated seats in millions of cars but can’t figure this one out yet? That chair was just as cold and clammy as I remember from the last time. Then, the procedure was underway. They pointed the interrogation spotlight at my face, put a bib on me like a 2 year old (because that does a lot for your self-esteem), and told me to “just relax”. They asked if I was ok, so I lied and said “yes thank you”. If only they really knew I was thinking “no, I’m not ok because you’re just gonna stick a railroad spike in my gums, stretch my jaw like a snake swallowing a small goat, and grind my teeth off with power tools”. But no, I kept that little dream to myself. Well, then it happened…..they came at me with the dreaded needle. I tried not to look but accidentally got a glimpse of it. Holy icepick Batman! Seriously dude….it was as big as a stinkin McDonald’s straw on a caulking gun, NO JOKE. I think I moved 6 inches up in the chair as I felt over 100 muscles in my sleepy body clinch up like a rock. The first hundred or so shots weren’t really that bad. The one in the roof of my mouth… now that one was fairly unfortunate. I’m pretty confident it penetrated into the bottom of my left eye socket, and I suspect they bent the needle punching through 3 layers of bone….at least that’s what flashed through my mind at the time, as I just about pulled the armrests from the chair. Once the left side of my face was completely numb and hanging 2 inches lower, and I discovered a puddle of drool on my brand new Duck Dynasty t-shirt, they treated me to a lovely “rubber dam”. Ever had one? Well here, let me tell you about this genius little gem: It’s like a popped balloon stretched over a paper clip frame that smells like a burnt tire. And, it goes INSIDE your mouth! As the dentist got ready, he popped on this little headset single expensive-lookin high-tech binocular gizmo that made him look like a soldier getting ready to go on a raid in “desert Storm”. If your dentist uses one of these, whatever you do, don’t look directly into it because it makes his eyeball look so big you can see the surface of his frontal lobe. Seconds later, the next wave of fun began. “Tim the tool-man Taylor” comes at you with his newest tool – “The Binford Tooth-Trasher 5000”! Soon after, while the dentist is happily drilling away like a 7th grader in woodshop class, the air is filled with the fragrance of burning tooth – MY burning tooth which I had worked so hard to grow over the last 18 years. It kinda smells like burning hair but with enamel on it. And, unfortunately you can only breathe through your nose at this point, because you have a rubber dam the size of a salad plate in your throat, and your tongue is folded in half and tucked into your tonsils. It’s just not right…the nasty smell goes out of your mouth and immediately right up both nostrils. I tried to blow out my nose every time he drilled, and then in again when he stopped, but it didn’t work so well. Next, that ‘Dyson spit-sucker’ tube thingy they conveniently hang on your cheek had slipped to the back of my throat, activating my already overactive gag reflex, causing me to stop the dentist before I launched the rubber dam into his face. I slapped my hand on the arm of the chair like a pinned wrestler, and whew…just in the nick of time did we stop that issue. I chose to hold the sucker tube myself for the rest of the experience. Finally, 90 minutes (that seemed like 6 hours) later we reached the end. They finished the demo and construction, as well as placing the crown on the top side with some hideous tasting glue and a Star Wars light they used to harden it. I was ready to be set free and it was good to be done! I had lived through the ordeal once again. The good side of the day at the dentist…. if there is one? I got to invest in the gold market via 1 upper right molar gold crown, and all that muscle clinching and nervous shaking had to burn at least a couple thousand calories.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 04:29:22 +0000
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