Innocence Is Out Of Style

Up until now I was a root canal virgin.

I'm no saint. I've had my fair share of fillings over the years since having two kids suck the calcium from me to create their little bones. And the jerkos don't appreciate it one bit, but hey, that's neither here nor there. However, back to the story at hand, I've never needed any serious dental work... until this week.

This is all because my last dentist TRIED TO DROWN ME!

Flashback, it's late 2009. I'm the lucky one getting a filling. Not a little one, but a semi-serious one with some drillage involved. I'm in the chair with my young(mid-30s I'd guess) dentist working away. And it hurt bad. Like a mofo. Also the assistant is standing there and is pouring water into my face and I'm choking on some sort of bite block.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

That's me telling them "Hey dudes, I'm freakin' drowning. Hello, can you help me?" No response.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

By now I'm kind of coughing/choking/turning blue. If I'd have had the ability to speak I would have said "HEEEEEY! I'm dying here assfaces!!"

And to which the reply is, just hang in there we're almost done. And by almost done they mean about 15-more minutes. I start seriously thinking about what would happen if I were to die right there in the dentist chair. Would Joey raise the kids well? Would they be addicted to Xbox Live and eat horrible food their whole lives? Would anyone ever bathe the dog or feed the fish?

Anyway, by some miracle I survive. Then they proceed to tell me that I have one last cavity to fill. It's kind of bad, but not a root canal - yet. If we fill it up soon. So I schedule that next appointment.

Well as it gets closer, I don't wanna go. I'm not exactly jumping for joy to go get drowned by the dude who looks a lot like this guy at work who a week before I'd written up for reading gross pervy questions on an answers site on the Internet while on the clock. Nope. So I reschedule. Then I reschedule again. Then I cancel. I. JUST. CAN'T. GO.

So, a little time goes by. OK, a LOT of time goes by.

Flash forward to February 2011. And I'm eating some popcorn at work. And of course daily I have to floss out the neat little cavern in my tooth that I keep really clean all the time. But it aint no thang. I can live with it. And hey lucky me, it never hurts. Until that day. I go to suck a little tiny popcorn morsel out and BAM! Agony. I swear I felt my head THUMP. It was horrible. Insta-pain 2011. It was a horrible festival of toothache and I was at the main attraction. Holy crap!

So I had no choice but to call the Satan-dentist to schedule an appointment. When I told the lady who ansered my name all she said was "Oh." And then proceeded to tell me that Joey had canceled 2 appointments in 2010 and with the 'past history' (my reschedule/cancel) they would no longer see us. And, while we were at it we owed them $17. So I pay the harlot the 17 bucks, hang up, and googled another dentist. I'd been dental-dumped on Valentine's Day. Bastards!

Well mercifully, I find a dentist (by my house - score!) that can get me in the next day. By this time I am carrying a bottle of Anbesol and a bottle of Ibuprofen with me every place I go. Beggars can't be choosers, so I am taking the first place that answered the phone and making them my new dentist.

Long story short. At the new dentist I get an amazing cleaning. The shots don't hurt (thanks to topical meds first) and then I had some fantastical laughing gas that made the entire half-a-root-canal process easy like Sunday morning. While I was waiting for the shots to kick in the nitrous oxide they'd given me did have me thinking that a "Beef" commercial I was watching on the TV on the ceiling was academy award worthy though. It's What's For Dinner, yo. It was AWESOME!

Now, I am on some antibiotics because my popcorn stint irritated the tooth so badly that I need some meds. And I've got a temporary filling now. They gave me some lortab to help with any pain. Which by the way gave me some insane dreaming that I wasn't asleep dreams (that's a whole other blog in itself) that were CRA to the ZY! It was like 'Inception' only less cool and at my house.

I have to go back on March 7th to finish up the process. And guess what? I'm not afraid! It doesn't have to be dentist chair o' death if you go to the right place.

So the moral of this story is that if something sucks, it really might not just be that you're a pansy. It can mean someone else is just a douche and it's not your fault. Don't let fear keep you from something you need. It's just not worth it!