Get those itty-bitty violins ready…

I had to go to the dentist today, to get the crown replaced on my implant and to get a filling.

I know. My life = so hard. We shall now pause so that everyone can play me a very sad song on their miniature, invisible violins.

{…conducts invisible orchestra…}

Anyway…I don’t know when exactly it was that “going to the dentist” turned into this horrifying experience for me. I know it wasn’t always that way, but at some point between my twenties and, well, now, it seems that my teeth have turned into semi-solid little lumps of pissy nerve endings.

They don’t like cold. Or hot particularly, but cold in particular seems to make them all yowl as if I’m ramming live electrical wires into them.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but, pretty much the entire time that dental things are going on in your mouth, there’s either cold air or cold water being jetted across all your teeth – both the numb ones, and the not so numb ones.

This plus a general sensitivity to cold…is not a particularly pleasant experience, and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about it. They can warm up the rinsing-water, but the drills that blast cold air are gonna keep blasting cold air.

Feh.

Then while the new crown was baking (I am still somewhat astounded by the way this works now, where you need a new crown and you go in to the dentist’s office and a couple hours later you walk out with the new, permanent crown in your mouth – see, back in my day, kids, you had to go to the dentist, like, three times, a couple weeks apart each time, to get a new crown…because the first one would always be wrong in some way, OR would snap in half when they tried to install it, so, two more weeks at the lab for a new one to be made…but, I digress), they went whistling onward to the filling.

This is yet another example of the way I can simultaneously know how something is…and yet not quite get how it works. I know that my teeth are much more sensitive now than they were in my twenties.

And I know that in recent years (ahem), the amount of numb-stuff they have to shoot into me before my teeth will actually stop screaming over even very minor work being done on them has doubled or even tripled.

AND YET…it catches me by surprise, every time, when they do their thing, and I’m all, “Yesh, mah dips are numbuh, ish gud…” and then they touch that drill to the tooth and I leap out of that chair like they just stabbed me or something. Yoooooowch!!!

I never see it coming. I always think I’m more than numb enough. So it not only hurts, but it startles me into the bargain.

Every. Single. Time. (<= my Argonian name would She Who Never Learns)

My poor dentist was caught between laughter and irritation this morning; he had to more than triple the amount of numb-stuff before it would “take” enough for him to get the job done in there.

It was kind of funny, though: The first time he started and I went, “{JUMP!}”, he was all, “Oh, gosh, OK…” and he jabbed some more stuff in there and we chatted a bit while it ‘took’ and we were both so confident that it was completely numb, like, there is no way that anything could hurt now, hahahahaha!

And then he touched the drill to that tooth and it was like this little fireworks display went off in my jawbone and I went {!JUMP!} again and he jumped too and we just stared at each other wide-eyed and said, at the same time, “You have got to be kidding me!”

…I may have added, “…what the hell?!” to the end of that, but as nobody actually got that on film, it can never be proven.

Nor can the five minute rant I went on with his assistant while he was rummaging around in his storeroom looking for the super-nerve-nuke’em stuff. (I think he eventually found them under some leftover K-rations.)

But eventually, he got things numbed up and was able to go about his business without me leaping and squirming around, and then I handed over a slightly obscene amount of money and left.

And now the numb-stuff is already starting to wear off.

And damn, am I ever glad I had enough self-knowledge to go ahead and put in for the rest of the day off when we made this appointment a couple weeks ago. The throbbing, aching and general u-g-h factor is clearly going to be getting no less unpleasant for a while here.

I doubt I have much in the way of “productivity” ahead for the rest of the day.

Feh. FEH!, I SAY!

{…conducts invisible orchestra again…}

But, oh well. Considering the alternatives, I still feel like a very lucky person. It’s a temporary inconvenience, some transitory pain – followed by a whole lot of relief, and years of being able to have my steak, and eat it too.

Seems like a pretty good deal to me, all things considered.

…even if I am going to be having carrot soup for dinner tonight in deference to an aching jaw…

…maybe with some dinner rolls…hmm…maybe barely-sweet-ish ones, made with rosemary-infused honey as their sugar-source…

…wait…

…why am I suddenly feeling like the rolls are dinner, and the soup is the side…?

…still…yeah…I’m…just going to go trim a little rosemary off the bushes in the front of the Den…mmmmmm, rosemary…!