carbonated joy

PAINFULLY TRUE STORY: So last week I was eating a tuna sandwich and I heard a loud “THHWWAACCKK” noise in the back of my mouth. I felt a little pain and it felt like I got something stuck in my back tooth. For days, I tried to get the obvious foreign object out of my innocent tooth. I KNEW there was something there and I KNEW that I could take care of it. I used 4 different kinds of floss, a new toothbrush, industrial toothpicks and a little thing that looks like a rotor rooter for the teethers. My very wise wife kept telling me “that’s not a rebel popcorn kernel, you need to go to the dentist!” I don’t enjoy going to the dentist and up until yesterday I haven’t gone in quite a while. To me, going to the dentist is like going to get an oil change. They always tag on extra things. You go in to get ONE thing done…”I just need an oil change please”…”please get the annoying popcorn kernel out of my tooth.” They always find MORE things that need to be done! “We need to fix this and this and this RIGHT NOW!!”
You never go to the dentist and hear “your mouth looks AWESOME, we don’t have to do anything, here’s a pack of gum!”
Like I said, it has been a while since I went to the dentist. Many things were the same. It smelled the same, very antiseptic. Just like my childhood dentist office, there was a copy of Boy’s Life in the waiting room. (I didn’t know that they even still publish it!) I was able to read about “how to make the ultimate s’more”.
But many things have changed since I last went. There is a lot of cool new technology. Everybody was wearing lovely rubber gloves. When I was a kid, there were no rubber gloves and my doctor had hairy hands that tickled the roof of your mouth. We used to be asked to rinse and spit every 7 seconds. It was like a slobbery competition. I didn’t rinse and spit once! Is that some kind of new environmental guideline? I’m a dude, I like to spit. AND, whenever we went in, we got a little snort of laughing gas and a free toothbrush. I’m pretty sure the laughing gas was for the entertainment of our parents and the dental assistants. I’m just glad there wasn’t YouTube back then.
Yesterday I did not get any fun inducing gas and no free toothbrush.
BUT, I DID leave with one less tooth in my head. It turns out, my wife was right! It was no popcorn kernel! I had split my top wisdom tooth in 2! I guess I’m a tooth grinder and that led to this ugly episode! So, I had a wisdom tooth extracted. (Extracted is a very ugly word! I prefer the words extra cheese). It was broken in half, so they yanked it. They also, SURPRISE, discovered several other things that need to be done. I even got referred to a specialist, which is never a good thing!! So, with a mouthful of gauze and no free toothbrush (I’m a little bitter) I drove myself home and walked the dog.
I am left with one less tooth, the knowledge that I soon get to spend more time in a dentist chair and a story about the time a tuna sandwich broke my wisdom tooth. A cheeseburger would never do that!
I need some laughing gas!