21 May 2006

Dentistry

"Dentophobia" - A morbid fear of dentists.
Some people hate spiders, others are afraid of dark churchyards at night. Some people shiver at the thought of giving a speech to a small crowd of work colleagues while others tremble about small spaces, open spaces, the number thirteen, flying on aircraft etc.. Me? I hate dentists. I always have done and I don't just mean hate them, I react physically to them. I sweat like a pig, my muscles tense rigidly. Even when I need to see a dentist, I will put it off for months until the pain is such that I cannot sleep and then I go - like a condemned man trudging to the gallows.
My current dentist - I'm always moving on - comes from Poland and she doesn't speak much English. I have never seen her mouth because it is always hidden by a surgical mask. What the hell does she think she is going to catch off me? Or perhaps behind that mask there are two bloody Transylvanian fangs. Her favourite word is "okay" which she says in various ways and then every so often she will mutter threateningly in her broken Polish-English, "Don't be afraid my dear..." which of course makes me more afraid than ever. I have had to see her six times in the last two months and once I was in that goddam chair with the light scouring down upon me for two hours. My tensed muscles had by that time turned my body into stiff concrete. Although it's handy, the fact that she sees me on Sundays suggest a pagan heritage.
I wonder if there are any dentists out there who have blog sites. Somehow I doubt it. The activity seems too human for a dentist but if there was a dentist-blogger then the site name would surely be...
"The Tooth Fairy"
because dentists have limited imaginations... and perhaps this would be an entry for May 21st 2006....
" That sweaty sucker came to see me again today. Is he a man or a mouse? He trembles like a weeping willow tree. I kept the freak waiting in the waiting room for twenty minutes - so he could peruse our odious collection of old magazines and tremble some more. Then I called him up to my torture chamber. Again he said "Good morning!" in a cheery English kind of way but I just ignored him and adjusted one of the drills. I made sure to twist the headrest in such a way that his head would be grossly uncomfortable.
As I drilled at the perfectly healthy tooth that I had condemned just for my amusement and financial gain, I made sure that the suction device made its usual gurgling gutter noise, the steel nozzle pressing painfully into the soft pink tissue beneath his tongue and failing to suck up even one millilitre of saliva and water. He gulped like a goldfish, as if drowning and behind my mask I sneered at his pathetic attempt to show manly valour. I had made sure that the novocaine I'd injected directly and deliberately into a nerve was insufficient to numb his tooth and he let out a pathetic whine as I drilled vigorously - tears forming in his little piggy eyes. "Don't be afraid my dear!" I whispered. For my pleasure, I have arranged another appointment for two weeks hence. The worm is too polite to challenge my authority. Next time the drill will accidentally pierce his cheek. Oh being a dentist is so fulfilling!" (Translated from the Polish)

9 comments:

  1. HAHAHA, but truthfully I like my dentist. I don't like going mind you but I like her.

    She moved and I thought I'd never see her again.. along with my medical doc..who moved.. twas a very traumatic year. But the dentist's father is my parent's medical dr and he gave me her number.

    The medical dr on the other hand is gone for good.
    So I chose another doctor, whom I had a fight with and her nurse so now I have yet another new doctor. Hopefully he will be more to my liking.

    Pudding Man you can do this. You put up with idiots all day.. you can do this. !!!! You are STRONG!

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  2. Surely only a gay dentist would call his blog 'Tooth Fairy'?

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  3. My Seattle dentist had to fix a world of woes perpetuated by the NY dentists I visited. You'd like his office-- it's distinctly non-dental!

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  4. Anonymous7:32 pm

    Your post made me cringe! I detest dentists (well, actually, I detest all doctors, but that's another story), and I avoid them like the plague. I was fortunate to have never visited a dentist when I was a child, and it wasn't until I was firmly ensconsed in adulthood that I finally had to visit one. Even then I only had one cavity.

    A few years ago I broke a tooth and needed my wisdom teeth removed so I had to visit a dentist. I chose one that used sedative as precursor to the actual dental work. I foolishly thought it would be a painless process, as the dentist assured me it would. Do you know how freakin' painful it is having a needle stuck into your hand? The dentist must have thought he was harpooning a whale the way he plunged that needle into my tiny vein!

    I endured this twice and was supposed to return for a third visit to remove the second wisdom tooth and fix the botched filling the first dentist did. I was so panicked I cancelled the visit and haven't been back. The botched tooth still needs fixing and the wisdom tooth should be removed, but unless I find a dentist that will not cause me pain, there's no way I'm letting those quacks anywhere close to my mouth!

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  5. I'm trying to remember which of the Terry Pratchett books it was that featured the Tooth Fairy and that last great unanswered question: What does she do with all the sodding teeth?

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  6. I, like you, am PETRIFIED of dentists and every time I've actually gotten the nerve to go, something has happened to make me vow never to go again! I'm lucky that I have good strong teeth but I know one day I'll have to go back....GULP!!!!

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  7. I truly believe that dentists and doctors are the reason recreational drug use has been so popular over the last few decades. Valium, my dear. If you have to drive afterwards, just put your emergency flashers on and try to avoid the curbs. And pedestrians. And other cars. You can always say that you got "high" from the novacaine, having never had that side effect before.

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  8. WHOA! I SEEM TO HAVE OPENED UP A REAL CAN OF WORMS re DENTISTRY. IT'S NICE TO KNOW I'M NOT ALONE IN MY PHOBIA!
    GEORGE - Mentioning doctors could open another can of worms - you seem to have a balanced attitude to dentists - not too freaked out.
    PEA - A petrified pea! Different from a frozen pea. We could swap dental horror stories together.
    SHOOTING PARROTS - Surely you don't BELIEVE in the tooth fairy do you? Terry Pratchett writes FICTION - geddit? Not true! Doh!
    TALLULAH - you can join our urban cell - dedicated to taking revenge upon the dental fraternity for all their cruelty and misdeeeds. Do they have Semtex in Canada or just mooses and polar bears?
    CLIFF - You what? Dustin Hoffman? What you on about? Must be a film I missed. Like me you seem resistant to the numbing effects of anaesthetic - tough Yorkshire lads together!
    ALKELDA - The idea of a non-dental environment is appealing! Furry walls and a deckchair with Andean pipe music lulling you into a forgiving frame of mind.
    DIRK - I think you may have something there - about dentists being gay - after all with its annual gay parade Sydney is clearly now the world's gay capital and I guess that out in the Bush there's a lot of gayness going on there too - as in the sheep shearers' "Dance of the Gay Tooth Fairy".

    THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR DROPPING BY.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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