Today I had my tooth prepared for a crown. It's not a king, it's in bad shape. The crown is supposed to protect it. The experience lasted for two hours, mainly because dentists see other patients in a staggered manner to maximize their time & make themselves more $$$$.
The people helping - all of them female - I want to say there were three of them - they were pretty indistinguishable. I know one of this helped the dentist - she might also have been the one who made the temporary crown - & another one took x-rays & another one actually scanned my mouth. Like, scanned it to a computer. I took a picture but I'm too lazy to upload it here. Also, my teeth are terrible. I know you'd judge me for that.
Anyway, I told a couple of jokes. My wife says they're "Dad Jokes." I prefer to think of them as more Groucho Marxian. Like, at the end, I told one of the women (the dentist split as soon as he was done), "I don't want to alarm you, but I will not be giving this spa a good review in Yelp." She then told me she went to an actual spa the past weekend. She reported that it was nice, but weird.
This wasn't my first dental surgery nor my first crown. But I never forget how weird it is to:
1) Have people constantly put their hands in your mouth.
2) Have someone stick needles into your gums.
3) Wait for your mouth to un-numb & then just be sore.
But the weirdest thing was, in my alone time - to wait for the gums to numb, to wait for the temporary crown, to wait for the dentist to get back to me - I started thinking about weird sexual practices. Bear with me. I was thinking, there are people who get off on pain, right? & there are people who - even if it's not entirely sexual - I mean, I never made it through that J.G. Ballard book Crash, it made me kinda sick to read - anyway, some people like to be injured & probably like to have surgical procedures done on them, so surely there are people who find a visit to the dentist to be erotic. Right?
My brain said to me, "Sexual dentistry," & I started giggling. One of the assistants walked in & asked what was so funny. I couldn't say.
But I think it would've made a great Marvin Gaye record, or something.
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