You're Going to Feel a Little Pinch

I went to the dentist today because he told me I had a cavity that needed filled when he cleaned my teeth 6 months ago recently. Because the cavity wasn't enough, I also broke a tooth a couple months ago recently that needed to be fixed as well. My parents aren't exactly the "We haven't seen the grandkids in weeks, can we come over?" type people so I try to refrain from asking them to babysit unless absolutely necessary. For example, a couple weeks ago when I needed to go to the ole gyno for a pap smear, I called them. Somehow, when you put it in that perspective, it doesn't seem so imperative to have a babysitter lined up when you need a filling at the dentist.

I really hate going to my dentist. I mean, I like the dentist as a person and if he was say, my accountant, I'd be delighted to see him, but then again, accountants rarely come at you with 4 foot needles and the lie, "Now you're going to feel a little pinch and some pressure." Pinch and pressure! Yeah right. One of these days, I'm going to reach out and pinch his arm and say, "Now THAT'S a pinch. Jabbing a needle in my MOUTH is not a pinch!"

So, the dentist is drilling away and my skull is vibrating. Literally, little fault lines started cracking open on my skull as he worked on my tooth. At one point, Clay walked over, peered in my open mouth and said something like, "Ewww, why is there blood?" The dentist dismissed him with a, "There's no blood" answer. However, I could see red trickling up the little sucky thing in my mouth. No blood? Well, it isn't cherry Kool Aid! How does a tooth bleed? Does your tooth actually bleed? Or is the blood the result of the swallow factor?

You know what I mean? When the dentist has your mouth pried open, and half a dozen instruments of death are in there along with his hands and you feel this need to swallow, but you don't want to swallow. And the more you try not to swallow, the more you have to swallow until you're consumed with the impossible task of trying not to swallow because you just know that if you give in and swallow, the motion of your jaw is going to send the drill on a trajectory that will cause it to bore into your gums, spewing a river of blood down your throat which will, of course, incite that swallowing reflex yet again. Or maybe it's just me who does that. Hmmm, I should really look into these things, maybe do a little research, or take some surveys, before writing about such stuff and letting the world know just what kind of nonsense goes on in my brain...

Anyway, after the drilling for blood extravaganza, he started to fill my teeth. I don't, quite frankly, know how I even have any tooth left to hold fillings. My teeth are beginning to rot right out of my head. It's only a matter of time until I look like this.

As my dentist was filling my teeth, Brooklyn came over and asked him, "Can I have a napkin?" Yeah, I have no idea why she wanted a napkin. Maybe she was snacking on toothpaste while the dentist had his hands in my mouth and I couldn't watch her. Anyway, she kind of leaves off the "P" when she says the word "napkin" so the dentist didn't understand her. She repeated it. "Can I have a nakin?" Still puzzled, he stared at her. I tried to translate, but since my mouth was numb and presently contained a drill, a sucky thing, a wad of cotton, and 2 hands, it came out like this, "Xhe wancia akin." Oddly enough, the dentist understood that.

On the bright side, the kids were really good. (I had bribed them with gum which, in retrospect, was probably not the best thing with which to bribe them while AT THE DENTIST), but it worked. They spent the whole time playing with their favorite video game system, a.k.a.- mom's phone. And I have a whole 2 weeks now when I can claim to have perfectly wonderful teeth before I go back for my cleaning at which point, he'll tell me I have 3 more cavities...