Avhi vhight bis, ouim fwowey vecobburing fhuhm gbheenn moi wizzum
teefowt—osso, ma waur bwoz.

Or, roughly translated, “As I write this, I’m slowly recovering from getting
my wisdom teeth out—also, Matt Lauer blows.”

The above two varying degrees of readable sentence fragments are facts.
Especially the latter half. I consider them equally understandable when
you consider my writing abilities. The first fact is kinda what this column
is about. The second fact was stated just to prove that I was watching
the “Today Show,” and actually am awake at 8:42 a.m., something that
hasn’t happened since April. And even that was really 11:30. And March.

Anyway, as I write this, I literally got the teeth (or “tooths”) yanked less
than 30 minutes ago, thus me being even more inarticulate than usual.
My dentist, apparently the Michael Johnson of removing teeth (and of
loudly using the bathroom while I sit alone as the Novocaine sets in),
took a total of eight minutes to remove the teeth. The entire visit lasted
exactly 20 minutes, which is 17 hours and 40 minutes less than I expected.
Because of this, I’m now laughing in a muffled, stinky, gauze-filled manner,
at girly, “yeah that’s the Tim I had gym class with” from 45 minutes ago.
The Tim who actually was feeling nervous about getting two pieces of his
freakishly large skull removed.

It all started with my last dentist visit one week ago. After my cleaning, I
got what I consider the best possible bad prognosis ever: “You have two
cavities. And they’re both on wisdom teeth. I’m going to remove them with
metal.”

The only way the prognosis could have possibly been worse/more hilarious
would have been if he would have then added: “Oh, and you’re preggers. lolz.”

I immediately felt sweaty, which is weird because I wasn’t hitting on a girl.
I nervously asked him questions usually associated with minor surgery.

“BaaaHHHH?” was my first one.

Then he took his thumb out of my mouth hole.

“So what kind of sedatives are we looking at here?” I asked while removing
my plastic bib and continuing to avoid eye contact with his nostrils.

“None,” he replied. “You’re going to get four shots in the mouth. You’ll be
numb. That’s good enough.”

“Good one,” I thought, waiting for the punchline. But then he went to the
bathroom again. In what I can only assume was an empty metal washtub.

I told and retold this story to friends for seven days. Nearly a week. And
throughout, these “friends” have been telling me how stupid I am, which is
pretty common. But this time they added how ignorant I was for going to a
dentist who didn’t feel like wasting pills to pacify things like blinding pain.

So for the past week, I’ve been expecting the worst and living my life to the
fullest. I splurged and bought Cookie Crisp and ultimately 2005 milk. I showed
up to work late two days in a row. Because my temp job primarily involves me
stapling a bunch of papers and then removing the same staples a couple
hours later, nobody really noticed. One afternoon I even went to this new
Goodwill.

The morning of the appointment finally came. I didn’t sleep too much the
night before because I’m a big baby, which is pretty ironic when you think
about it. I dressed in my black and white Spider-Man shirt because I
wanted to feel heroic. Plus it was the only article of clothing I owned that
wasn’t wrinkled or filled with actual spider webs.

Immediately upon entering the dentist office, the secretary told me to go to
the back. I was kinda pissed I didn’t get to read any current issues of
“Arbitrary, Unpopular Sport Weekly” or any 1983 editions of “Highlights
Magazine.” And without my bi-yearly dose of Goofus and Gallant, I wouldn’t
know how to act when thrown into bewildering situations. Like whether or
not I should wipe.

About seven minutes later, I was numb and the dentist was on top of me
while Phil Collins’ “One More Night” played over the office’s P.A.

A little later, the actual dentistry began.

As he was pulling the first tooth, Lefty, it cracked in half. I spit part of it out
and it left a trail of blood in the chair’s attached sink. I said, “Woah!” because
I’m amused by things like that. And Michael Bay movies. When he managed
to get the rest of the tooth out he said “Thar she blows!”

This whale reference made me really self-conscious, because I thought he
 was calling me fat. But I later realized that my severe emotional state was
due to me taking so many no drugs at all.

He pulled the second tooth, James, out easily, but it went in my throat. I
leaned forward and coughed out what I think was actually a bison tooth. I
laughed uncontrollably at the tooth’s girth until the dentist abruptly said,
“OK, stop that.”

Five minutes later, I left the office, laughing at how lame I was earlier for being
nervous. I was issued a slip of paper that read “Leave gauze in place for 45
mins. Remove and replace with fresh gauze every 45 mins until bleeding stops.
Eat or drink nothing HOT for 5-6 hrs.”

Then I giggled at my dentist’s assumption that I was capable of preparing a
hot meal.

©2005 Tim Landry