Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

It's Been A Bad Week

I am officially on a losing streak. Two trials, civil in nature, went in the dumper, one involving a window and siding salesman and the other resulting in the abominable trip to Lost Vegas, where the witnesses testified in support of my client, but apparently were not believed by the good ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The latter trial ended Monday, and I got the findings of fact and recommendations of law on the former on Tuesday; so, yesterday, in furtherance and support of my mental health, to make myself feel better, so to speak, I attended a session with my dentist.

I exercised my freedom of choice and instead of getting a fake tooth implanted on a steel spike rammed into my jawbone over the course of six or eight months and having large portions of my wallet excised in a peripheral procedure, with all the follow-ups and 3,000 other reasons, I elected to just have the damn tooth yanked out. It's way in the back, so I won't look like I'm ... well, no need to insult hockey players or others ... It won't show, and I figure the little gap back there will be a good place to hide microchips and stuff I smuggle into the country.

I was sitting in the dentist's countour chair, meditating, figuring that was as good a time as any, when he said he was ready to go. He said he was going to split the tooth in half and take out each half, and I was in no position to tell him otherwise, since he was jabbing me with his novocaine needle and had several fingers in my maw. My tongue was exercising its limited freedom, intruding on the guy's territory and obviously wanting a piece of the action. I found it hard to control my tongue, which is probably why I lost the last two cases I tried.

Being trapped in the dentist's chair and trying a case are comparable. You're never in control and sometimes you get drilled, mostly when you least expect it. It was like that in the dentist's office. The fucker pulled out a drill and started drilling away. That's not what he said he was going to do. The smell of burning organic matter, my organic matter, was in the air. What happened to the concept of a smoke-free environment? There was smoke coming out of my mouth. What happened to painless, non-invasive dentistry? I'm wondering right now just what novocaine or xylocaine or Michael Caine are supposed to do ... none seem to act very well anymore.

Then a masked woman said to the dentist, also behind a mask and some funky glasses, "It was just too easy in the beginning." What the hell did that mean? She was sucking away with the sucker tube ... was she talking about the sucking? Or the drilling? Or the whole procedure? And do you really want to say something like that to a conscious patient. That's why they use general anesthesia ... so the patient doesn't know how bad he's fucked up.

He stopped drilling. Then he got some kind of instrument that only a gynecologist could have invented. He rammed that sucker right into my mouth and moved it around. I closed my eyes. I tried to push the damn tooth out of my jaw ... it must have worked because he said, "Here it comes!" Then, "There we go." Then he said, "I'll just clean out this granulated tissue." Then he said, "Give me some gauze."

Then he said, with a sigh of relief, "All done." He droned on about some rather unimportant stuff about bleeding and infection and swelling and generalized malaise. But unlike a car repair shop, I was not offered the used parts back.

Y'know, for the tooth fairy ...

Posted by Bill at August 12, 2004 04:09 PM