So I went to the endodontist today. Like a dentist but much worse. I had Jack Nicholson playing in my mind through the visit.

I needed some work done on my teeth above the gum line. Just sit back for a moment and ponder how they might do that.

The doctor, who has a sizable tremor to his hands, tells me he is going to give me a little Novocaine. He injects the Novocaine with the largest needle I have ever seen so I closed my eyes for the rest of the visit (I almost feel like a team member calling it a visit), he swishes the needle around to get in there good and then walks away for a bit so it can take effect.

The doctor walks back in, taps at my gum for a second and then tells me I need more.

Really? Cause I can’t feel my eyes or my ears right now. In fact I’m having a hard time feeling my toes but that might just be because I’m practically upside down in the chair.

I can’t argue with him because I have a vacuum in my mouth along with at least two of his fingers and one of his assistants. Go for it. What’s a little more numbness?

He does his work, I hear the drill which I’m hoping only sounds as loud as it did by my ear, I hear things break, could be my tooth, could be the instrument, I have no way of knowing.

“How are you doing there Jennifer, are you comfortable?”

What kind of question is that? It must be rhetorical because even if I was inclined to do anything but nod my head slightly I can’t do that for all the metal, plastic and whirling things in my mouth. But what I would say if I could would be something like this:

“Do I look comfortable? I’m having an aneuyrism for being upside down, quiet literally I might add, for nearly an hour, I have a saliva vacuum sucking all the hydration out of my body, broken pieces of god knows what on the back of my tongue, another vacuum that apparently sucks up bigger things than the first one. Someone pulling my lips apart so big I can only think of things I would rather not print, and blood is splattering all over my face and clothes. No, I’m not really comfortable and I wish you had been a little more honest about this procedure because if I had know it was going to be like this I would have not only carb loaded last night since I know I won’t be able to eat for some time, but I would have also taken a few shots of any liquor I had in my cabinet before sitting in this horribly evil chair.”

“I’m not a baby. I can handle pain. This is not about pain. The least you could have done is to have coated my lips and tongue with Chapstick or something. And one more thing, I made sure to brush, floss and rinse before I came for my visit, couldn’t you have done the same?”