Parallel to the world

When you are lying in a dentists chair, parallel to the floor with someone hands in your mouth, you are at their mercy. You have no control over who enters the room or what is said. Hell, half the time you don't have control over your own mouth as saliva glands to spouting off like Old Faithful (huh? you don't have that problem? uh... never mind).

I noticed my dentist leave when some old Polish lady with Illinois plates came into the office. I noticed the Nissan right away by the shitty park job. Damn FIB taking up two spots. My Polish dentist went right out the door with her 5 minutes later, the two of them speaking in their native tongue. It didn't matter to me because the hygienist does all the work anyway. I wasn't their for any major work. It was only the semi-annual checkup.

I did notice the other dentist right away though. He was slightly hunched over and walking around with the mask on. Looked old and freaky. As soon as they lowered the chair he came into the room looking for a mouth to poke around in. It was the end of the day and my guess is he was bored. He cracked some really bad jokes as he looked at my last x-ray. It was a pretty cool picture. On the monitor they had the shots of my teeth but he held up a composite photo of all the x-rays in one pic which looked just like my jawbone. I even asked if I could get a copy.

One of the first things he did was go right for the wisdom teeth. They should come out. I thought they would pull them a couple years back but they decided that wasn't a priority. With each appointment they mention it in passing but nothing really serious arises from it. Yesterday was slightly different though. Between the discussion of giving a German Shepard a root canal and the chimpanzee tooth he saw at the zoo yesterday, he took a fond interest in the top left wisdom tooth of mine. He mentioned it was dark. First time I had heard that. A dark tooth is not a good thing. He says it should come out but doesn't say it needs to come out. I thought he was going to do his best to pull the tooth out right then and there. He kept pressing it with the dental instrument, like he was testing the strength of the tooth. I think he was disappointed that he didn't puncture it right then and there.

After the cleaning was done I spoke with the hygienist about the tooth. By the way, my hygienist cleans her cat's teeth on a regular basis. If you couldn't guess, yes, she is single. Kinda cute but I could never go out with her. She would take a look at my cat's teeth and go nuts. But I digress. They hygienist told me if the tooth doesn't hurt then I should not be too concerned about it. When there is pain or it is affecting the tooth next to it, then there is a real problem.

I just figure I will have them yank it later this year. She did warn me about "cheek stretchage". Yes, she made it sound like the real pain I would feel would not be from them yanking the tooth but from them stretching my cheek to get access to the tooth. Great! I go in to have a tooth pulled and leave with stretch marks on my face!

She even goes on to tell me that if I had it done on a Friday afternoon that the pain would only last a day or two and I would be fine for work on Monday. In my mind, I was thinking of having the work done on a Tuesday or Wednesday so I could be drinking by the weekend. Sheesh! What is this lady thinking?