the dentist

I had a dentist appointment today. Going to the dentist as an adult really is one of the greatest tests of adultness. It's one of my most hated activities, yet I faithfully keep those appointments every six months. As I ascended the steps outside the dentist's office today, I thought, "Why am I here? I could walk away right now and never have to go to the dentist again. Men don't go to the dentist or the doctor (at least most men I know). They fumble along in their fantasy man world where everything's perfectly fine until all of a sudden a limb's falling off, teeth are missing, or an organ or two has failed. Then they go to a doctor." I thought about Chris. I'm pretty sure he's been blissfully canceling and postponing dentist appointments for some time now. I reached the top of the stairs and as I turned the doorknob I thought, "Damnit! I'm so blasted responsible." And I entered the dreaded waiting room. 

As I sat in the waiting room a few patients get called back. They all looked perfectly happy to be there, smiling and talking. As if they weren't about to disappear from normal civilized life into horrific torture chamber for an hour. But then, I do the same thing. We chat and laugh and act as if everything's just fine, but it's all a farce isn't it? We are at the dentist, after all. All that happy small talk doesn't fool me. That receptionist has some nerve, smiling like she does when she knows darn well what happens just down the hall!

I don't see the regular old dental hygienist. At first I felt a bit embarrassed about this. I go to the hygienist who sees all the kids. The walls in her room are covered with pictures her other patients have drawn her. I should give her one some time, just to show up all those five-year-olds. Anyway, seeing the children's hygienist means I get more choices for flavors of toothpaste and much better parting gifts than all the other adult patients. But I really see her because I have extremely sensitive teeth and gums. She is gentle. She babies me and puts lots of numbing stuff in my mouth before all those metal torture hooks and scrapers go in there. This makes my appointments marginally more bearable, but even with that I have a lot of pain. So I endured my fifty minutes of torture by dental instrument (Yes, fifty minutes. Did I mention that on top of the sensitivity, my teeth LOVE to collect plaque like it's going out of style?) and then had to be examined by the dentist. Don't you just hate being examined by the dentist? Doesn't it automatically make you feel like something's wrong with you and that you're going to need seventeen fillings? Or that someone's going to reprimand you for not flossing enough, or for having seventeen cavities? Or that you must have the grossest most diseased mouth the entire dental practice has seen that day? Maybe I'm more paranoid than most.

Anyway, I survived. I went home and gorged on tooth rotting vegan lemon bars. And brushed my teeth afterward, of course.