Novocaine and Narcissism.

The dental office is a treacherous place.

I hadn't been to the dentist in roughly 10-12 years due to a lack of dental insurance.

Well now I'm on YoungLife staff and if you didn't know, YoungLife benefits are nothing short of phenomenal.

So I called up the dentist with my newly acquired dental insurance.

Come to find out those roughly 10-12 years really did a number on my pearlies.

Grand total of 9, count em 9, cavities.

Ugh.

So today was the day I would enter into the dental office, reluctantly and slightly clammy, to get half of my cavities annihilated.

It started with a pleasant little teeth cleaning. And it was pleasant. I actually enjoyed the scrapeage. I thought a little bit about becoming a dental hygienist, simply so I could scrape the decay out of people's mouths. I think I'd really enjoy that.

So that part was fun. But I was disillusioned by the fun of the cleaning.

I popped a few chairs over, to sit in front of my slightly attractive dentist, feeling perky, a little too excited for the drama that would ensue.

He swabbed me with the local anesthetic and then shot me up with the long wretched needle. I had an out of body experience briefly at that moment. I looked at myself lying in the chair with a giant needle gun syringe jaggedly hanging out of my mouth as the right side of my face started to sag. I looked at the assistant lady as she shoved the "bite block" into the left side of my mouth to keep my mouth pried open. I looked longingly at the slightly attractive dentist, who's unfortunately married, and then I looked back at my pathetic body lying in the chair. Then I pointed and laughed. And as I started to cackle, my out of body experience zapped off and I  was myself again, pitifully trapped in the dentist's chair.

Honestly, I can't think of anything worse than having to cough when you have four hands, a bite block, two cotton swabs, a sucker, a sprayer, and a drill crowding up your mouth. I was miserable. I'm trying to get over a cold and the lady was doing a terrible job of relieving me of the urge to swallow. Isn't that her job? Shouldn't her job title be "Official Swallow Reliever." I guess that could be misconstrued.

Anyway, my perkiness, my excitement, had indeed fled the building. I had to get 5 of my 9 cavities filled today. The initial anesthetic wasn't enough so I felt the dentist drilling the hell out of my nerves for approximately 57 seconds before I finally realized that it wasn't supposed to feel like that.

So then he numbed me more.

Making my face sag even more.

I found myself day-dreaming about death as I laid in that chair. I got to a point where I was so uncomfortable, a point where my heartbeat was escalating exponentially, a point where I felt like my bowels were about to lose control of themselves. And at this point I imagined myself passing out and dying of a heart attack in the dentist's chair.

I told you it was a treacherous place.

This daydreaming then cascaded into the thought of what will people think?

They'll tell stories of Sabrina dying at the Dentist. How pathetic is that? Of all the ways to die, she went out in a plasticky chair with a paper bib around her neck, plastic goggles on her face, and a drill in her mouth.

Since when do you have to wear goggles at the dentist? I guess since the "Official Swallow Reliever" started getting sloppy and started allowing some of the mist from the spray gun to explode out of my mouth and all over my face. Yup, that definitely happened too. The splatters on my face awoke me from the tragically fatal daydream where I imagined myself dying in their chair.

So as you can tell, I'm alive to tell the tale, and I just went to the bathroom to check out the damage. Looks like I should have paid the extra 10 bucks per filling in order to get the tooth colored substance, rather than the silvery puddles of mercury that are sitting in the beds of my molars. They're ugly. And I hate them. But oh well. I'm not going back.

Until next month when I have to get the other 4 on the other side of my face filled in.

Damn it.

I also don't think I've ever been so self conscious as I am right now, as I sit in the middle of a cafe with a terribly unfortunate drooping face. I can't smile. I can't chew. And I tried to take a sip of water, and it dribbled out of my mouth and into my lap.

Pity me.