A boring dentist story with only one graphic detail

I’ve had a dodgy wisdom tooth for a couple of years, and two weeks ago I finally manned up enough to go to the dentist. It’s been about seven years or so since I last went, but that’s not because I’m scared of going – quite the opposite. It has everything I love. White coats. Sterile surfaces. People paying attention to me. Forms to fill out. Bliss. 

But I do resent paying to go to the dentist. Gosh, but it’s expensive.  I have pretty good teeth, and the only thing I’ve ever needed doing is having the odd wisdom tooth out, and frankly it ticks me off to be charged $20 for a ‘topical application of cleaner’. I clean my own bloody teeth twice a day and it costs me a damn sight less than $20, but then I suppose I didn’t go to uni for four years to learn how to do it properly, and if I had $50, 000 in HECS repayments to make I might start making stuff up too. 

I also required a trip to the pathologists office to get an x-ray, which was blessedly bulk-billed. I walked into the x-ray room and had this conversation with the lab tech;

Him: Are you pregnant?

Me: (giggling coquettishly) No, I don’t think so

Him: (deadly serious) So there’s a chance you could be?

Me: (slightly taken aback) N-n-n-o, I really don’t think so

Him: (annoyed now) Well are you or aren’t you? Because if you are, or you think you might be, I’ll have to go and get the lead apron.

Me: Ummm, no. I am not pregnant.

Him: (long, appraising look, as if I might be lying just to piss him off) Well if you’re sure. You don’t want the lead apron?

Me: No, thanks very much

Then he stuck my head in something called an orthopantomograph and looked inside my skull.

A graphic image from inside my head - and don't I look happy to be having
potentially carcinogenic rays being fired into my brains?

Then, a week later I went back to the dentist and he stabbed me repeatedly in the mouth with needles and scalpels and removed a tooth. It was all over very quickly, and if I hadn’t been sobbing in terror quite so violently it probably would have been even faster. The dentist must have seen the look in my eye because immediately after he said that the best pain killer is panadol or ibuprofen, and he only prescribes codeine in extreme cases. Damn.

So now I have one less tooth in my head, and have been on a strict diet of soft and mushy foods, including melted brie, crème caramel and macaroni cheese, which I intend to prolong indefinitely (for legitimate medical reasons).