On Going to the Dentist (Or: If I Didn’t Love Chewing So Much I’d Have All My Teeth Removed So I Never Had to See a Dentist Again. Stupid Chewing.)

Divorce? Big move? Death? New job? Often these are cited as the most stressful life-changing moments. I beg to disagree.

I should’ve known when the new dentist asked me to don safety goggles that this was not going to be the same old rodeo.

Traveling back and forth from Oklahoma to Arizona means I have missed a lot of dentist appointments in the past two years. Okay. All of them. Stop judging. I hate the dentist. I hate getting my teeth cleaned. I hate everything about it. I have canceled more dentist appointments then I’ve ever made by inventing excuses. Like I go to my grandma’s funeral at least once every two years.

The Husband, freak of nature, loves the dentist. He goes three times a year. Sometimes I wonder how we stay married.

No wonder then that he skipped through the door the other day sing-songing that the dentist down the street from us in Arizona was having a new patient special. He had already made me an appointment and I was caught off guard and out of excuses. Where’s a big fat fever blister when you need one?

My relationship with my old dentist, Dr. Chastain, dates back more than 20 years. It was not always a happy marriage. I, through fault of genetics, am not easily numbed. Dr. Chastain, through fault of believing I am normal, has hurt me. I threatened to leave him for a sleep dentist if he couldn’t make it better. I know he wanted to quit me but then he figured out how to numb me. The last time I had dental work done and things went smoothly, we both had a smoke afterwards.

Anyway, I hate all dentists, even Dr. Chastain. But they say the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know…

There I was in safety goggles, plaque-water spewing all over the room and me. The actual dentist was cleaning my teeth. There was another girl there with a sucky stick (who warned me too late that I shouldn’t close my lips around the “big hose” and that was the last time I ever saw those tonsils). And hello? Everyone knows the hygienist is “good cop” and the dentist is “bad cop”! If the dentist is also the hygienist then I have the whole friggin’ corrupted police department up in my mouth.I was scolded for using too stiff a toothbrush and then she recommended braces for me because my teeth are getting crowded as I age. AS I AGE? I hate her more than I ever hated Dr. Chastain and I’ve hated him hard. She said I needed to have a filling replaced and I started to hyperventilate. When she said they don’t offer laughing gas for a filling replacement I hightailed it out of there.

Dr. Stephen Chastain of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, I hate you but I need a filling replaced. So fill up 3 numbing needles (because we both know the first two won’t take), set those noise-canceling headphones to smooth-jazz and turn the nitrous oxide gas nozzle wide open. Because you’re the devil I know and you can’t quit me.