A Trip to the Dentist
Today, I went to the dentist.
I hate my dentist.
Some background: my former dentist was awesome. He was kinda old, and his surname was Murdoch (I don’t know what his first name is, I just remember his surname ’cause it reminded me of Daredevil). He was nice, he was friendly, and he gave me Rugrats stickers (this is several years ago…as far as you know). Plus, the one time he had to take a tooth out, rather than jabbing my gums with a needle full of anaesthetic, he used good old fashioned gas, which resulted in a delightful, pain-free and hallucinatory extraction, complete with spinning and a talking smoke alarm.
Then, one day, he left. I’m assuming he retired. Then we got the new guy.
Let’s call him ‘Dr. Szell’. All dark, greasy hair, focused scowl and a slightly-sinister foreign accent. From my first appointment with him, I knew he was different. Just a stern “Good day,” “Sit down”, poked around, then “Goodbye”. No stickers. No friendly chit-chat. Worse was to come.
I had wobbly tooth, and new it. I was reasonably calm in the waiting room, assuming it was time for some happy gas, no pain and a chance to hear the talking smoke alarm again. He would be more chatty than Dr. Szell.
I was wrong. During his requisite, silent poking around, Dr. Szell stated to himself, “Hmm, this one is loose,” and proceeded to RIP MY GODDAMN TOOTH OUT. And it really, really hurt. If my mum wasn’t there, I would have sworn like a motherfucker.
The guy then blithley stuck a little sponge, and then said it was my sister’s turn.
I stumbled out of my seat, blood pouring into my mouth, and dizzily returned to the waiting area, where I promptly layed down on the chairs to stop myself from lovin’ fating.
Okay, so that was slightly overdramatic, but I was in my pre-teens, and thus anything and everything is subject to exaggeration.
Anyway, today I had just a regular check-up appointment. Having lost all my baby teeth years ago, I had nothing to really worry about. I walked down to the surgery, following the same route I took every day to primary school (the surgery is across the road from the school), Scott from Geeknights ranting in my ear (err, not literally; I was listening to a podcast), my right hand was kinda hurting .
I got there, informed the receptionist, and sat. The rest of the surgery was empty. Totally empty. And therefore, silent. The only sound I heard in my ten-minute wait was some slight mumbling of the good Doctor in his room. I flicked through a weird, free magazine they had, called ‘Fit’, produced by the NHS, which was like some weird cross between a Nuts-style lad’s mag and an informational leaflet - reasons why binge drinking is bad on one page, pictures of Keeley Hazel in a Baywatch-bikini on the other.
When I was asked in, I thought “Good day” in my head a good 30 seconds before Dr. Szell said it. I sat down (no prompting too, I just assumed I had to), and he poked around in my mouth. He started to do stuff, which, as he didn’t actually tell me what he was doing, all I had to do was sit and try and figure out what all the spraying and scraping was.
After another ten minutes, he was done. He handed over the forms to hand in at reception, didn’t tell me what he just did, and said “Goodbye”.
And the bastard didn’t give me a sticker.
