Irish Jigs and Dental Work – A Bad Pairing

So going into a beautiful Thanksgiving I was fat, dumb and happy thinking nothing could be better.  As mentioned in my last blog however, all of that quickly changed with one bite of hard, crunchy bacon.  For as quick as you can say “Oh lord, not another dental blog coming….” my tooth had decided that it had had enough action for one life and ejected approximately 17% of the top bitey part.  That’s technical talk, so please forgive me.  Here’s a detailed sketch I did for you of aforementioned bitey part.

So against all better judgment I bit the bullet (literally) and scheduled a dentist appointment with the local quackery.  I’m against dentists in general and think I’d rather just generally accept the wrench treatment when something goes wrong.  It worked for Tom Hanks in Castaway (well, the ice skate treatment for him – but it’s the same idea) and he’s STILL making movies.  That ought to show everyone that dentists are just in it for the money.

I had asked everyone (one person) if I should take the piece of tooth that fell off in with me to the dentist and it was unanimously voted on that I should.  I dutifully placed it in a sanitary plastic bag with a handy zipper (the best invention ever, by the way) and trudged my way down to the dentist.  The first thing they did there when I got in the chair?  The nurse ripped the plastic bag out of my tender hands and rammed it deep inside the garbage can.  She said that it was VERY unsanitary and they don’t even want to deal with it.

Well la-dee-da-flippin-dah.  Note that I may be exaggerating about some of the details above.  There was no rippage and definitely no rammage.  But you get the point.

So with that being said, there I sat, half-toothed and waiting for BigFingers McSausageThumb, DDS to come in and inflict his abuse.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear?
The hottest frickin’ dentist EVER was near!

She walked in like a vision.  Smoke actually cleared and I heard trumpets signaling her arrival as Hottie McHotterston took her place in the dental seat of honor by my side.  I was ecstatic.  FINALLY, I was going to have a dental visit that was worth my time.  I’m sure she was a brilliant dental student ready to conquer the world.  There would be no more pain, no issues.  Then she opened her mouth and uttered perhaps the dumbest first question a dentist has ever asked me:

“So what are your thoughts on this whole tooth thing?”

I swear those were her exact words.  My exact words, “Huh?”  My thoughts?  How about my damn tooth fell out and you need to fix it without pain?  I said, “I’m thinking I’m not too happy with my tooth right this minute…”  She nodded assent.  Suddenly the hotness flew out of her faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

She then asked if I had worked on it at all.

Huh?

I said slowly….”Noooooo….isn’t that YOUR job?”

I repeat that this was the actual conversation.  You might perceive me as being rude or short with her, but those are two of the stupidest questions I’ve ever heard a dentist ask in my life.

Finally, she got down to work.  She explained that it was a hyper micro-crack or something like that (or is that a new bathroom thing like a bidet?) and that my choices were a huge filling that might work for 2-3 years or longer, or to get a cap that would cost $1200 but would last 10 years.  I voted immediately for the filling just to get out of there as fast as possible.

Ms. Notsomchottersonanymore then asked me if I wanted to listen to some music during the procedure and if so what kind of music I liked.  OK, point for her on that.  I was at somewhat of a loss for words (since her fingers were obviously prying around my mouth at the time) and I stumbled out “Christmas”.  On came the Christmas music.  But nothing jolly or filled with jelly.  Suddenly the room was full of that strange kind of angelic Christmas music that would be played at someone’s funeral.  Was this the harbinger of death at the fingertips of an angel?  Was she the angel coming to take me home?  Should I go into the dental light???

I begged them to change the station immediately.  We agreed to go with the Irish music.  I don’t know why exactly we decided that, but I was hoping for Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphy’s…… but instead I get traditional Irish jig music.  Fine.  So she starts working away on me and I all of the sudden it hits me.  She is actually drilling and poking and prodding IN TIME TO THE IRISH JIG MUSIC!  I spit out her fingers and noted this quickly to her – asking if she could either please just slow down or find a nice Austrian Waltz somewhere.  She promised that she would just slow down and not get caught up in the music.

So that’s about it – the rest of the time in the chair (about 30 minutes) went by in a blur.  I won’t go into her leaving for about 10 minutes during the procedure to go talk wedding plans with a friend, or how she tipped my chair so far back that I could taste my socks for 3 days afterward.  I just left her with a friendly probing question:  What percentage of people keep their eyes open while you’re 3 inches from their face?

Ms. Notsomchottersonanymore had never heard that question and said that she never noticed.  I didn’t believe her for a minute.  Me?  No matter how hot the dentist is, I have a rule about the eyes:

“If the fingers are prying inside, the eyes will look as if they died”

Let me leave you with that thought….