2003-03-13 9:05 p.m.

A Typical Magpie Day at the Dentist

My traitorous teeth have done me in again.

I had my once-every-three-month (trimonthly?) cleaning a couple of weeks ago, and they promptly scheduled me for THREE fillings. The first two were this afternoon. Five hours after the start of the appointment, most of my cheek is still numb. An unopened bottle of Advil is taunting me from the couch -- I may not need them now, the little pills are snickering rudely from underneath their little wad of cotton, but I will soon enough.

How did this all come to pass? you didn't ask. Well, I'll tell ya.

The fun began when I showed up 20 minutes before the appointment, all psyched for the happy pills. Ms. Sunshine, the world's most chipper receptionist, had promised me some drugs that work wonders on hard-case patients like me if I showed up early and didn't drive to the appointment. When she found out I'd be riding BART home, she scampered back and consulted with my dentist. When she came back, she sat me down on the couch. Uh-oh.

"The doctor doesn't feel right about giving you the pills if you're taking BART home," Ms. Sunshine explained gravely, as my hopes of having an even mildly pleasant dental experience shattered into tiny pieces. "Taking the pills is like getting drunk and he doesn't feel good about you taking BART home like that."

"It didn't seem the time to tell her that I'd already done that," I later told TheBoy. "Although in retrospect, that didn't go so well."

"Well, you got those huge bruises on your ass on the way to BART," TheBoy pointed out. "So technically the BART ride was fine."

But I digress.

In the chair, as I sucked down my consolation prize of nitrous oxide, the dentist explained to me that he'd be giving me two, maybe three shots of novocaine -- the first one for the tooth further forward in my mouth, then the next one or two shots toward the back, after he'd worked on the front tooth. The first one went fine. The second, however...

*drill* *drill* *drill* "Nguh." Up went my Hand of I Felt That, Please Give Me More Novocaine.

Shot #3.

*drill* *drill* *drill* "Nguh."

Shot #4.

"You're going to be numb for a loooong time when this is done! OK, we're almost there."

Shot #5.

*drill* *drill* *drill* "Nguh." That time I think I actually whacked the arm of the dental assistant. And my dentist said seven words you never want to hear from your dentist when getting a filling done.

"This isn't working. Let me get the spoon."

Finally, finally, he finished, after I'd been there over two hours. My legs were wobbly from the adrenaline that had been coursing through them, I was tired from the nitrous, the left side of my face was swollen and drooping like a stroke patient's and my mouth tasted like I'd licked the floor of a Home Depot. But dammit, I was free.

And wouldn't you know it, people actually tried to talk to me on the way home. Fuckers.

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