i'm happy to announce my gum tissue disease is under control.
finally.
but not without a large piece of humble pie for dessert.
the story:
god knows, i have sent many a dentist and family on dream vacations with the amount of work that's been done in my mouth.
so it should come as no surprise that i have had my share of novocaine, enough to numb keith richards five times over.
some people are experts in economics, or insects, or beers.
me?
novocaine!
having said all that, it was gum tissue disease and the strong arm of my gentle lady periodontist, dr. knumb, that finally broke me.
it all started out like any other oral-deal, so to speak.
oh, they were shooting my gums left and right with everything they had.
and i smiled in cocky defiance—a smirk actually.
had worse—my first dentist used a battering needle about two yards long and a half foot thick to apply the pain killer.
and of course there was the two-part scaling episode just recently.
so i just gurgled a chuckle as they numbed away ...
... that is until the she softly said, okay, i want you to drink some water and practice swallowing, just so that you know you still can.
i said, whab?
she repeated it, adding that sometimes people panic with this much novocaine.
i asked, whab arb yoob talkin aboub?
she replied, i'm sorry, i didn't quite get that.
i repeated with emphsis, whab! arb! yoob! talkin aboub?
she patted me on the head and said, just swallow a little water.
i did, but most of it rolled out my mouth and into my lap, which gave me that oh so uncool wet crotch appearance.
satisfied by my pants embarrassment, she and her trusty assistant, igoretta, lowered the death chair back down and began excavating up one tooth and down another.
and for the first time in the 213 times i've been in the chair, i was on the precipice of true panic.
i was convinced i was about to swallow my tongue, if i could only feel it.
i began to sweat under the white heat of the interrogation lamp, while they tore into the roots of my teeth with some kind of large, vibrating device that dimmed the hot spotlight momentarily every time they fired it up.
this minor gum surgery procedure was akin to removing dirt from under the toenails with a jackhammer, which i can assure you requires a bucket full of novocaine.
i clutched the armrests.
i mean i clutched the armrests (those are capital letters in case you didn't notice)!
i immediately resorted to lame mind games, like going through the alphabet backwards: "z, y, x, l, h, 8, #"
i gave up.
i couldn't stop that growing urge to ... to ... swallow!
i needed to swallow or i'd drown for sure!
i remember thinking, god if ever there was a time to give me evidence of your existence so that i might break from my godless, agnostic ways, this was it. let me swallow!
nothing!
i was going to die.
a numbed skull no less.
drowned in my own saliva.
the human irony of it all.
this lowly state lasted about an hour and a half!
by the time it was all over, i had sweat myself into a perma
dr. knumb declared, well that wasn't so bad, was it? you numb real nice.
i said, chi alb's play realby. could yoob helb me oub ob dah chairb, ibe seemed to hab gobben stuck?
at the end of the day, i had survived—barely.
and i suppose it all worked out for the best.
i had been to life's edge and returned a more humble man.
no more mr. smirk.
not from this guy.
not to dr. knumb and assistant igoretta anyway.
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