Cadavertinis and Sweet Confessions

Me: I have a confession to make.

Dentist: You’ve been eating sour Skittles again. Breathe slowly, count backward from ten.

Me: Ten. Yes. Nine. I can’t help myself. Eight. I’m on a diet. Seven.

Dentist: Good. Nice, deep breaths.

Me: But I’m weak, doc, I’m weak and wayward. Six. I’m incorrigible, and disobedient and recalcitrant. Five. That’s a great word, recalcitrant. Four. Also: I can’t resist temptation! Four and a half. So I compromised and only ate one Skittle a day. Three. One Skittle! Four. One. Two? Five? Wait–what was I–was I counting up or down?

Dentist: I think you’ve had enough.

Me: I have another confession to make.

Dentist: I don’t encourage my patients to make confessions while under the effects of nitrous oxide.

Me: That stuff smells gooooood.

Dentist: Does it?

Me: Better than the guy in the waiting room. 

Dentist: Tilt your chin a bit more toward me?

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.

Dentist: Must be. Open wide?

Me: Men should never say that to me. Makes my brain go bad places.

I obey, blinking blearily into the overhead light. A latex-covered finger slides into my mouth, gentle and rubbery, and starts prodding my gum. A long-handled mirror clicks against my bottom teeth.

Dentist: *making a soft, displeased noise* Yes, this looks swollen.

Me: *gargles a naughty giggle deep in her throat*

Dentist: Sorry, forgot who I was talking to. Does it hurt when I do this?

Me: More men should inqu–OW!! MotherFUCKER!

Dentist: *sing-songs* Children in the other room.

Me: Sorry. Mothersucker.

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.

Dentist: Your phone. Wanna turn that off?

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, because as everyone knows, bearded men are great snugglers. That’s not theory, it’s fact, and it forms the basis of how I think of my dentist when I’m under the gas: Dr. Snuggles, only with sharp instruments. I turn the phone to vibrate and shove it in my pocket.

Me: You were saying, how my molar is fucked?

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 when the movement of the post cracked it, exposing the interior–

Me: Oh!  Blerg.

Dentist: Are you going to vomit?

Me: Nope, just need a minute to process. *rapid blinking*

Dentist: Certainly.

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 narrow-in on a hazy thought which sharpens into something dreadful.

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?

Dentist: They do use donated bone in dental grafts, yes.

Me: Donated. To science.

Dentist: Yes.

Me: Donated. By dead people.

Dentist: Yes.

Me: Soooooo there’s gonna be cadaver bone in my mouth.

Dentist: More gas?

Me: Yes! Fuck!

Dentist: Backwards from ten.

Me: Ten! That’s fucking sick, doc. Nine! It’s beyond sick. Eight! It’s unfathomably disgusting, and … Seven! … as such: quite awesome. Sixfivefourthreetwoone. Man! I can’t wait to tell everyone there’s gonna be some dead guy in my MOUTH!

Dentist: *a lot less sing-songy* Children in the other room.

Me: Wait! Will the male strippers at Peppermints be grossed out that I have itty bitty corpse bits stuffed in my jaw? Seems like the kind of thing that would make a guy run away. Crap. Who’ll give me all-nude lap dances, if not them? I’d rather give up Skittles than Peppermints.

Dentist: You’ve got someone waiting to drive you home, right? I could give you something for your nerves …

Me: Doc, you can’t expect me to live without having my gin and tonic stirred by naked strange. That ain’t right.

Dentist: *for the first time chokes on his tongue a little*

Me: Then again, dead guy in my mouth … that ain’t right either, unless you’re using Dahmer’s dictionary.

Dentist: Maybe you could avoid announcing “dead guy in my mouth” to strangers in a strip joint? Just a thought.

Me *squints at him and points hard*: Right. Right! You’re a genius.

Dentist: Thank you. I’m going to give you a presciption for more vicodin, to help you sleep until we can get that worked on.

Me: Keep the corpse a secret. Of course, duh. Boy, am I stupid or what?

Dentist: Let me just check your chart for … hrm, here we go …

Me: The word stupid is on my chart, seriously?

Dentist: Are you still taking Epival under psychiatric observation?

Me: If by “observation” you mean “prescription over the phone”, then yes. *beams brilliantly*

The dentist makes an uncertain noise, like he doesn’t quite believe me, and swivels on his chair like a big gruff teddy bear on a perch. He considers me from behind the safety of his surgical mask for a minute, his calf-brown eyes deep in thought.

Dentist: I’ll put through the referral. And no more Skittles, you.

I follow him out into the hall, pleading with the back of his pristine white lab coat.

Me: You’re kidding, right? You’re just kidding. That was a joke. No Skittles?

Dentist: Not. A. One.

Me: Lemon drops? Tootsie Rolls? Smarties? M&Ms? I gotta have something, doc, have mercy on a poor girl. Tic Tacs? Life Savers! Gummy Bears? Swedish Fish! Hot Lips? nah, too chewy … oh oh! Nerds! They’re so little!

Dentist: September 6th, 2 pm. Check back with me on the 20th. *smile* And stick to your “Peppermints”. They’re probably better for your teeth.

Me: If you could just write that on a prescription pad, that would really help me out … no? Doc?

(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 things to her dentist. Or maybe she does, and afterwards prefers to believe it never happened. Yeah, that’s probably more like it.)