Sometimes You Just Have To Ride It Out: Part 2

There are times when people think I’m nuts. I’m not… or at least the thing I’ve done that freaks people out has a perfectly reasonable explanation. Not that it helps.

No shit, there I was… in the dentist’s chair. Wait! Let me add some backstory.

As a child I actually liked dentists. What’s not to like? I was a good boy and brushed regularly. A dentist visit meant a day off school and I’d get a free toothbrush. Not to sound like I grew up in a cave or anything but a free toothbrush was a big deal! (Remember when a toothbrush had real wood handles? You don’t? Now I feel really old!)

When I was a teenager, my mom took me to a different dentist. No quick cleaning and free wood handled toothbrush this time. Instead, he declared I had eleventy zillion cavities. I saw no reason to disagree. Nor was I suspicious of his motives. However, I wondered why a decade and a half of perfect teeth had suddenly turned into multiple cavities? Perhaps my house’s well water, which wasn’t fluoridated, had a role in this….

AAAAAAAAAUUUGHGHHGHGGHGH…

Without warning the motherfucker basically attacked me. He didn’t drill cavities so much as run amok. I didn’t get Novocain, I didn’t get gas, I didn’t get any pain treatment at all. It was just me trying to hold still while he drilled like he was looking for the Comstock Lode. He drilled a lot, he drilled deep, he drilled several teeth all at once; both sides of my jaw, upper and lower. He drilled everything but the pavement on the street in front of his office. It was torture, pure and simple. There was blood everywhere, screaming, bits of teeth, I shudder just remembering it. The man was the works of Stephen King, Alfred Hitchcock, and Edgar Allen Poe all rolled into a single sadistic asshole.

In 2018 a man that incompetent would be sued until he and any man, woman, or houseplant associated with him was bankrupt. He’d get Yelp reviews or whatnot that would put him out of business in a month. He’d get reported as incompetent to whomever governs the dentistry profession. He’d probably get beaten in an alley by angry patients; including six-year-old kids and little old ladies. Americans simply won’t shrug off treatment that painful anymore.

But that’s now. In my youth, things were different. He had free rein to be the stuff of nightmares and my mom just cut him a check. His office should’ve been firebombed.

That was the last time I needed any serious dental work. My teeth, which were reportedly healthy before that shithead attacked me, have been remarkably healthy for many decades after. He probably had a boat payment?

So back to 2018. I’ve been fortunate for decades and decades so my time is due and it seems fair. Plus, my teeth already hurt and I was anxious to get them fixed. Also, modern dentists are super-efficient and this one is working specifically to earn my cash. Entirely unlike the barely qualified cretin from my youth, she’s on the ball. Everything is going my way.

Yet, I’m only human. I’m having flashbacks to fucking dental Ragnarök and my eyes have the wild look of an animal that’s cornered. It doesn’t help that I don’t look like the average dental patient. I have a huge beard and strange vocabulary. I come off like an unholy cross between a homeless guy, an unemployed physics professor, Santa Claus, and someone who walked off the set of Mad Max. The dentist’s assistant is looking at me like I might tear the building down brick by brick and I’m thinking I shoulda’ drank a fifth of whiskey for breakfast.

The dentist is a frail tiny young woman. I could bench press her whole body while holding a beer in the other hand. Wisely, she moves slowly.

I’d have happily paid for a general anesthetic. I’d even pay extra for the “we drive up in a van with dart guns like they use on bears in an urban dumpster and kidnap you off the street” approach. But that’s not remotely medically necessary. She pumps me full of Novacaine (or whatever they use these days) and she’s like a stealth ninja. I’m numb before I even realize what’s going on. Well done! I try to congratulate her.

“Well done! A shot like a thief in the night. My compliments.”

But I still have wild eyes and her assistant is moving the tool tray (whatever they call it) away from me. The assistant and the dentist are looking at each other as if to calculate the odds I’ll jump up and do a Bourne Identity improvised weapons attack on the entire block.

The dentist hesitates.

I’m ready. “Don’t worry. I’m cool. LET’S DO THIS THING!”

That didn’t reassure her. Not one bit.

Now my face is numb. I’m not speaking clearly. “Blaurgh whauf flooop.” I try again. “Punch it! Hit the ripcord! Dial to eleven! Ger ‘er done before I chicken out!”

Nope!

They dim the lights and back away. She explains she’s giving the shot time to work. She’s talking with the same tones I’d use to coax a wounded dog into letting me get a look at its injury.

“Soothing tones.” I acknowledge. “Bloogle groof. Norf norf. Fluxnawney flupter foort.” I try again. “Thanks, I’m mite nervous but just have at it.”

Then, because it would work with most people and she has no idea I’m an outlier, she uses another tool in her arsenal of “calm a patient down”. She clicks on a TV. It’s on a swingarm right in front of my face.

She backs out of the room, explaining I need 20 minutes to let the shot do its thing. I nod.

The TV is playing “The Price Is Right”. I think back to the bastard who wrecked me decades ago. He was a sadistic monster but at least he didn’t inflict television on me. I collapsed in the dental chair. It was going to be a rough day.