All Aboard The Root Canal!

Dentists. I used to love going to the dentist. Back in the day, there was never any cause for concern when I visited Dr. Wechtler. I showed up after or, if my parents were feeling generous, during school to get my teeth poked at, looked at, and made like new. And after every visit, while my parents were scratching out another dosage of moolah for my benefit, some kindly but dangerously large receptionist would offer me something from her cauldron on the west side of the rainbow for being a trouper. It usually wound up being a super ball, which might explain something about a past obsession of mine. Those were the days. The days when I proclaimed my love of the dentist with a drawing of my frequent DDS that looked like Pippi Longstocking with Bell's palsy. 

Ever since I gave the dentist that picture, I started to hate the dentist. Cavities seemed to invite themselves into my mouth, striking up raucous rounds of the cavity creep theme song every so often. And, after widening the already gaping hole in my molar with their miniature scythe, the dentists at Southern Lehigh Dental Arts are happy to whip out their jackhammer and scar me for life. Let me digress for a moment to tell you that these cretins believe turning your mouth into ground zero is a form of art. Does this mean art students are actually training to become dentists? I can only imagine Jackson Pollock trading his paintbrush in for a rusty spatula. Digression complete.

Oh sure, there have been plenty of optimists that try to convince me that dentists are my friends. Right. And every terrorist and computer nerd who ever went against Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series tried to convince him that they were trying to help, not hurt. Look how that ended up! Yippie kai yay, mother f****r! BLAM! POW! ZING! SHALOM! They all died! Only in my case, everyone is still alive and also still dead wrong on the pro-dentistry side.

I remember when my mother took me into the dentist's office for a routine check-up. When they called my name, I was taken into the chamber furthest from escape. After waiting ten minutes and being forced to listen to a radio station that played Christmas music in September, in walked hands-down the scariest dentist my eyeballs have ever had the misfortune of gazing upon. She had spooky short dirty blonde hair that would disgrace the wall of values at your local wig shop. Her dental glasses magnified her putrid purplish crusty eyeballs way too much. She could have been a great villain for Batman or Spiderman or maybe even the Crimson Chin, but she went to dental school instead. 

She told me that I would be having a root canal, not a normal check-up. Other employees were telling my parents to check into a motel since they wanted to torture me until my first grey hair emerged. She didn't tell me why I needed it, but I needed it. Therefore, the next two or so hours of my life were by far the most excruciating medical moments of my short life. I got three shots of Novocain because every time the ghoul drilled my tooth, it was as if Satan had just eaten a tuna sandwich and breathed onto my tooth. After the third shot, I felt no better than I did after the first and second dosages. But onward it went with her crimes against humanity. I was at my all-time low. The ghoul was staring into my widened eyes, turning my molar into demonic fumes of burnt teeth as Jingle Bell Rock was blaring from the disgusting ceiling above. At one point, she stopped drilling and proceeded to ask me how cross country was going (the assistant dentist told her what she learned about me during the last check-up). I could barely even breathe thanks to the smoldering gas arising from my now extinct molar and a triple dose of Novocain that didn't work and this hag wanted to know about how bad I am at running. I wanted shove her personalized dental hammer down her throat.
The bottom line is, simply put, dentists are terrorists of the mouth. Your teeth feel fine in the six months between check-ups, but when you arrive at their concentration camp of minty freshness, your teeth begin to ache due to the constant poking, prodding, and gum-fondling they charge you ridiculous amounts for. Sometimes they let you off scot-free with an ominous bag of goodies with a smiling tooth on the bag to remind you that the Gestapo is everywhere. Otherwise, welcome to hell.