~ I HATE THE DENTIST!!! ~

It’s Two Cent Tuesday, the day of the week when M.J. takes what would normally be an inordinately long Facebook status and turns it into a blog post. Today we’re talking about the dentist.

I HATE THE DENTIST! And I DON’T use that word lightly! More accurately, I hate going to the dentist. The dentist himself is a very nice man, except for his propensity for causing me excruciating pain. That habit I’m not fond of.

First of all, I loathe that little curved mirror thingie. The dentist uses it like a shepherd’s crook to stretch my mouth to obscene lengths. I want to scream out, “My mouth doesn’t get that big!” But I can’t. Because there are 342 dental instruments in my mouth! I’m talking the water thingie, the sucky thingie, that pick axe thing he uses, and 339 other instruments. And a piece of gauze whose only function seems to be to choke me more. Sometimes I don’t think they even know what certain instruments are for, they just know that they need to shove them in my ever-expanding gob!

My mouth is fairly small (I know! Shocking!) so when they take x-rays, they have to use a child-sized film holder, and even that cuts into me like a switch blade. I mean, I really HATE going to the dentist.

Even when it’s just for a cleaning. They pick and pick at that protective covering that you’ve worked so hard to establish and then they wedge floss between your teeth until it suddenly gives and goes plunging into your gums, making them bleed. And let’s not forget the whole fluoride process. I love how they let you choose the flavor--like one of those puppies is actually going to taste good! And then they’re spinning that instrument and tickling your gums so badly you want to cry and you just have to move a little to make it stop. And when it’s all over they offer you a toothbrush. Like that’s the grand prize you’ve been waiting for all of your life. Your teeth feel so big as you walk out to your car, you wonder if you’ll be able to fit both your body and your teeth in it.

And that is just a cleaning. Today I went in to have a cavity filled.

Let me ask just one question here. Why can’t one shot numb you? Today he did like five. They hurt like a booger when they go in and hurt even worse when they squeeze the syringe’s plunger down. The kind of hurt that brings tears to your eyes first and then you close them, thinking that if you don’t see anything, maybe it won’t hurt as much. It’s a lie.

At approximately this point in the procedure your nose begins to itch like the dickens and you CAN’T SCRATCH IT! You’re thinking to yourself, if the Spanish Inquisition had only used these methods they would have found out everything they wanted to know the first day.

Meanwhile, they’re drilling on your bottom teeth while knocking your top teeth with their instruments and if you could feel your lips you would so like to cuss them out, although you know they don’t deserve it and they’re only helping you. If you’re lucky, you get a whiff of the bone they’re burning away, because that is so pleasant. Nothing like the smell of body parts smoking. After they’ve drilled their nice little canyon, they have to press the filling material in it. So they are pulling your lips to the right so hard it feels like the corners of your mouth are going to crack, while at the same time they are applying pressure in the opposite direction as they press the filling material in place.

And then there’s that awful taste! I don’t know what the heck they are doing at this point but all of a sudden your throat is full of the most vile flavor, a mixture of molten lead and blood, like they’ve opened up both a vein of ore and your actual vein! And you’re numb up to your eyeballs and today the water spraying thing seemed damaged because it was squirting both in my mouth and down my cheek at the same time. Talk about adding insult to injury! I SO detest the dentist.

And I’ve been numb now for four hours and I’m starving, but I’m afraid to eat because I know I’ll bite my 6” thick tongue or the side of my mouth, which has managed to stay out of the fray thus far.

Today I got a filling. In August I’m having a tooth removed. May the good Lord help us all on that day!

What about you? Do you like the dentist? My crazy big sister actually likes going to the dentist and getting her teeth cleaned. When we were kids, knowing about my enmity for the dentist, she used to go in my place, and oddly, no one was the wiser. Come to think of it, that may have been what got me into this spot in the first place…

Tell us your dental horror stories. Just let it out, this is a safe place to vent. What’s the worst part, in your opinion? Anything particularly gruesome ever happen to you while in that contoured chair, that blinding light roasting your corneas? Come on. You know you’ll feel better if you share it.

Did I ever tell you about the time I had my wisdom teeth removed…?