Rinse and Spit

I took all the kids, plus one friend who had slept over last night, to the dentist for our 6 month cleaning today. That was a really fun way to start off the week. You know, with 7 kids being bonkers in the dentist's office for an hour and a half. Actually, the friend (Brandon), Savannah, and Lexi got gold stars. Austin only got a silver star because he "accidentally bumped Brooklyn". This is also known as "tripping her on purpose". Clay also got a silver star because he spent a little too much time being wacko in the office. Jackson didn't even earn a star. He got an oval. Brooklyn got a rhombus because she threw an all-out fit because I wouldn't let her clean the floor with her brand new toothbrush. Know how long you can play I SPY before the kids' attention spans are spent? 4 1/2 minutes.

I'm usually prepared for visits and pack a few toys/games to occupy the little ones. I wasn't prepared today. In fact, we all got up late and I threw pieces of toast to the kids as I yelled at encouraged them to quickly get dressed and get in the car. Jackson's poor friend is never coming over again. I starved him and made him sit at the dentist for an hour and a half when he'd just gone to the dentist with his own family of 6 on Saturday! Poor kid.

Anyway, as I started writing my post for tonight, I remembered that I had written one about my trip to the dentist back in July to have a couple cavities filled. I only posted the last paragraph for some reason. Here's the rest of it.....


I went to the dentist today. My dentist is a little Novocaine happy. Then again, my old dentist never used Novocaine when he filled my teeth. Of course, he was senile. Seriously, I'd gone to the same dentist for 20-some years and despite the fact that I'd have a tooth filled one week, he wouldn't seem to remember me the following week. Maybe that's why, when I switched dentists, my new one told me that my teeth were still decayed beneath my fillings - because he didn't drill them enough, thus no need for Novocaine.

Anyway, he approached me with the needle and I clamped my mouth shut.
"Open," he instructed.
"Huh-uh!" I said while turning my head.
He looked at me for a minute while debating whether I was serious. He wondered for a minute if he should restrain me, give up, or plug my nose thereby forcing me to open my mouth.
I gave in and opened up.
He slowly pushed the plunger on the syringe and, after 4 and a half minutes, had injected 86 ounces of Novocaine. Meanwhile I sat there all nice and tense, my nails biting into the flesh of my palms. I jab my nails into my hands while having my teeth worked on because I'm positive this will keep my dentist from hitting a nerve and sending me into orbit in a fit of horrific pain. I'm serious. It works.

"Go ahead and rinse."
I sit up, take a sip from the cup that magically fills every time he tells me to rinse, and swish it around my mouth which is quickly becoming numb. Then I spit. I don't think I've ever just spit into the bowl and been done with it. Not once in my life. And I've had a LOT of dental appointments in my life. Nope, I don't just spit. I spit and drool and make a huge mess. Sometimes I spit with such force that the water sloshes over the side of the bowl. Sometimes I kinda miss the bowl. But I ALWAYS have globs of drool hanging all over my face when I'm done. No problem - I have my very own absorbent paper bib to wipe my mouth on. I'm sure my dentist is thoroughly disgusted by my practice of wiping my mouth all over myself. By the time I leave, the bib is a soaking wet, shriveled scrap of paper.

Then he grabs another syringe and points it at my mouth.
"What the...?"
"I'll fix the tooth on top too." Then he proceeds to repeat the process on the top of my mouth.

So he drilled my teeth with a um, jackhammer. Seriously, I don't know what kind of drill bit he was using, but I felt this vibrating in my head as a delicious burnt flavor slowly dripped down my throat. As he drilled my teeth, I concentrated on not swallowing. The more I thought about not swallowing, the more I needed to swallow and no matter how much I willed myself not to, my throat didn't obey. I have this fear that I'm going to swallow while he's drilling and the swallowing action is going to push his drill into my gum where it will bore a hole through my skull and I won't even know it because I'm so numb. What's left of my brain will leak out into my mouth and I'll accidentally spit it into the little toilet bowl the next time I'm told to rinse.

When he's done drilling, he starts to put some tooth-filler-stuff in them. After putting some goo on my tooth, he takes this little wand that has a glowing purple light on it. It's basically a glow stick that kids like to play with at Halloween. It makes some sort of beeping noise. The purpose of this is to glow and beep.

After the glow stick treatment, the dentist had me bite down on a piece of carbon paper. When businesses went from that old fashioned machine where they slid your credit card under a stack of paper and carbons to an automated computer system, they gave dentists their supply of leftover carbon paper. I mean, they didn't want to just throw it out. That would be wasteful. The dentist uses this carbon paper to ...well, actually they just use it because they don't want to throw away their boxes and boxes of carbon paper either.

After my appointment, I went shopping for a pair of shoes because I'd decided that I couldn't wear my Crocs to BlogHer. I went to 50 shoe stores! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pair of shoes that look cute and yet are super comfortable? I found dozens of cute pairs at every store. They were adorable! Unfortunately, I would break my neck if I ever tried to walk in them. Still, I tried a couple pairs on for kicks. Keep in mind, that at this point, my mouth was still completely numb. So here I am, stumbling around in these heels, my mouth drooping, probably drooling on myself and I couldn't stop thinking about that Seinfeld episode with Kramer and the shoes and the Novocaine!