Open Wide

Today I went to the dentist. For the life of me I can’t understand what makes someone want to be a dentist. Looking in to someone’s mouth, picking at their teeth and wiping their slobber off their face. It’s all just so yucky.

I hope that everyone slobbers as much as I do when I am at the dentist. I can’t help it. I can’t seem to swallow and eventually there is slobber every where. One time when I was a teenager I went to a dentist that must have been training people because I remember that there was about 5 people peering into my mouth. All of a sudden my spit shot strait up in to the air and they all had to dodge it. They all laughed and I, being a teenager, of course thought it was the most embarrassing thing that could ever happened to me. Boy was I wrong. I would rather slobber a lot than have that suction thingy left in my mouth the whole time though, you know the thing that sucks every last drop of moisture out of your mouth till you feel like you just smoked the fattest joint ever.

Every time I go to the dentist I can’t stop thinking of that little guy in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. “I want to be a dentist”. I just don’t understand. When you are little do you think to yourself, I want to look at peoples teeth all day long? There is nothing heroic about it. Its not like you are going to save a life.

Don’t get me wrong I am grateful for dentists. I have had my share of teeth problems. One time when I lived in Bakersfield I had no money no insurance and a toothache from hell. I suffered for weeks with this toothache. It was so bad that near the end I even contemplated suicide. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I went to a dentist’s office and when they refused to help me I sat in their lobby and wailed. I wailed loud. I had no shame. I was not myself. I was like a wounded animal. I remember there were lots of people in that lobby. I didn’t care. Finally they must have thought I was scarring the other patients because what seemed like hours later they took me in and pulled that tooth. It was a huge abscess. The whole in the middle of it was the huge. I was so relieved. I became a snaggle tooth and didn’t even care.

Wait a second. That dentist saved my life! Now I understand! I would have killed myself or my boyfriend or in innocent bystander if I hadn’t gotten that tooth out of my head! Thank you Dr. Dentist at Western Dental on Ming (I think). You saved my life. You picked a noble and important career and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I never paid your bill not because I didn’t appreciate it. But because I was on the verge of living in my car and as a matter of fact did live in my car shortly after that. Its ok though because your bill is one of the many unpaid bills that ruined my credit and is now making me pay 15% interest on my piece of crap car that I will be upside down on for the entire five years of my loan. So you have your revenge. I must say though, it was the best $140 that I never paid!