![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/145260big-150x150.jpg\" "\\"145260big\\"")
<\/a> Seven.<\/em><\/p>\nDentist: Good. Nice, deep breaths.<\/p>\n
Me: But I’m weak, doc, I’m weak and wayward. Six.<\/em> I’m incorrigible, and disobedient and recalcitrant.\u00a0Five.<\/em> That’s a great word, recalcitrant. Four.<\/em> Also: I can’t resist temptation! Four and a half.<\/em> So I compromised and only ate one Skittle a day.\u00a0Three.<\/em> One Skittle! Four.<\/em> One. Two? Five? Wait–what was I–was I counting up or down?<\/p>\n Dentist: I think you’ve had enough.<\/p>\n Me: I have another confession to make.<\/p>\n Dentist: I don’t encourage my patients to make confessions while under the effects of nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n Me: That stuff smells gooooood<\/em>.<\/p>\n Dentist: Does it?<\/p>\n Me: Better than the guy in the waiting room.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dentist: Tilt your chin a bit more toward me?<\/p>\n Me: He smelled like grease and beer-breath. Car grease, not greasy food. Damn, I could go for some greasy food. Or some greasy beer. And I don’t even like beer. But I’d drink beer with the grease man out there. I’d let Grease Man pour beer all over my naked body and slurp it off. Weird hunh? Must be the gas.<\/p>\n Dentist: Must be. Open wide?<\/p>\n Me: Men should never say that to me. Makes my brain go bad places.<\/p>\n I obey, blinking blearily into the overhead light. A latex-covered finger slides into my mouth, gentle and rubbery,\u00a0and starts prodding my gum.\u00a0A long-handled mirror clicks against my bottom teeth.<\/p>\n Dentist: *making a\u00a0soft, displeased noise* Yes, this looks swollen.<\/p>\n Me: *gargles a\u00a0naughty giggle deep in her throat*<\/p>\n Dentist: Sorry, forgot who I was talking to. Does it hurt when I do this?<\/p>\n Me: More men should inqu–OW!!<\/em> MotherFUCKER!<\/em><\/p>\n Dentist: *sing-songs* Children in the other room.<\/p>\n Me: Sorry. Mothersucker<\/em>.<\/p>\n I start hearing a familiar bell sound. Maybe it’s an alarm in my brain, warning me I’m about to go supernova on this guy’s ass.<\/p>\n Dentist:\u00a0Your phone. Wanna turn that off?<\/p>\n I swipe at my purse, knocking its meagre contents into the patient, bearded dentist’s lap: Moleskine, pen, phone, Skittles, car keys, pickle fork. I make a point of telling you about his beard, of course,\u00a0because as everyone knows, bearded men are great snugglers. That’s not theory, it’s\u00a0fact, and it forms the basis of how I think of my dentist when I’m under the gas:\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Snuggles, only\u00a0with sharp instruments.\u00a0I turn the phone to vibrate and shove it in my pocket.<\/p>\n Me:\u00a0You were saying, how my\u00a0molar is fucked?<\/p>\n Dentist: Not sure I used that term, but by the looks of it, there’s an active infection in the jaw bone. It must have become infected\u00a0when the movement of the post\u00a0cracked it, exposing the interior–<\/p>\n Me: Oh!\u00a0 Blerg.<\/em><\/p>\n Dentist: Are you going to vomit?<\/p>\n Me:\u00a0Nope, just need\u00a0a minute to process. *rapid blinking*<\/p>\n Dentist: Certainly.<\/p>\n He sits back with his heels up on the wheels of his rolly-chair and observes his patient. I swallow several times, breathing in slowly and deeply through my nose to calm myself. My fingernails withdraw from the vinyl padding of the chair’s arms, leaving claw marks. When the little black stars stop swirling in my vision, I\u00a0narrow-in on a hazy thought which\u00a0sharpens into something dreadful.<\/p>\n Me: When my dad had his jaw fixed after a bad root canal, they used cadaver bone to fill it. Is this the same thing?<\/p>\n Dentist: They do use donated bone in dental grafts, yes.<\/p>\n Me: Donated. To science.<\/p>\n Dentist: Yes.<\/p>\n Me: Donated. By dead people.<\/p>\n Dentist: Yes.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imagesdent-150x150.jpg\" "\\"imagesdent\\"")
<\/a>Me: Soooooo there’s gonna be cadaver bone in my mouth.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/thrustingchainsawas.jpg\" "\\"thrustingchainsawas\\"")
<\/a>(editor’s note: AJ Aalto wrote this entire blog while under the effects of vicodin and Blue Curacao on the rocks–a cocktail which shall forevermore be known as the Cadavertini–and will not be held responsible for the contents of today’s blog, or any other blog this summer, as she intends to drink this shit a LOT. You know, for medicinal purposes? Also: AJ does not actually say such horrible, perverted\u00a0things to her dentist. Or maybe she does, and afterwards prefers to believe it never happened. Yeah, that’s probably more like it.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"