"You're Going to Need a Drink After This."

I just got back from the dentist. There was crying, there was blood and a smidgen of vomit. Want me to go on? Will do.

I went to see this fancy dentist on Central Park South a few months ago after a bad run in with a Fireball. I cracked my tooth into five pieces and had to get a Partial Crown. First he took pictures of the gaping hole in my mouth with a tiny camera from the future which I then emailed to everyone I knew. During his drilling, I watched the new Pink Panther on a flat screen television. He scanned my mouth with a laser to double check that I had no other cavities. I thought, "We are living in the future! I could go to the dentist every day!"

Boy was I a dummy.

I did have cavities. Four of them. I'm going to state for the record that no, it was not just years of candy and improper flossing. It's genetics. He told me so, so there! So the cleaning happened first today. You can always tell it's a bad sign when the Hygenist goes ahead a numbs you before she starts. After that it was like Halloween IV. I've never heard or felt so much scraping, pulling, yanking or scratching in all my non-violent peaceful life. I feel my jaw start to swell due to a terrible case of TMJ. She stops and says, "You're going to need a drink after this."

After that I'm sent into the next room to get my fillings. The first two. Only they're the last two teeth in my mouth. On the top row. My jaw was so swollen from the cleaning that I can barely open my mouth. So much that he literally tilted my chair back as far as it would go to see the back. This enabled all of the water, numb-numb juice, blood, etc to go directly into my throat.

There were at one point, up to eight different tubes leaving my mouth. I would open my eyes only when I was slapping the dumb assistant's tube out of my throat, and would see smoke rising from my mouth. Oh what's that? It's just my effing tooth being drilled away. The numbness is wearing off. My jaw is getting so sore that they put in a bite splint, only this makes the gagging worse. I start crying. Immediately he tries to change the subject by asking, "Is this song Hootie?" I start crying harder. There is no flat screen television. There are no lasers. Only heartache.

How can it get worse? Wait for it. The doctor goes into the next room to tend to another patient and leaves me alone with this demonic assistant. She starts shoving what feels like fire and death into my gums. I'm wincing in pain and she reaches for another few shots of whatever it is that makes your pain go away. The taste of this drug is going back down into my throat. I can bear it no longer. I gag all over her. All the liquid from the shot is everywhere. Spit, blood, everything. It's all over her, the chair. Everywhere. I'm sobbing over the rinsing drain, unable to open my mouth to properly cry and drooling out of the side that isn't swollen. She gets up and leaves the room.

That, in a nutshell is how I won my first set of fillings. I have to go back in two weeks to get the next two. I am never, ever allowing my teeth to reach the sad state they were in. Kids, you must floss. You must love your teeth. You should never underestimate the worth of your teeth.

You should take your teeth out on a date.