Getting To The Root

Remember a few weeks ago when I made my friendly every-two-years-whether-I-need-to-or-not visit to Dr. Hairy the Dentist?

He's such a nice guy.

He apparently thought the same of me, because he invited me back to see him again and just for kicks threw in a filling. Only as I was coming down from the cloud of laughing gas he had me on, I mentioned to him that the tooth he had been working on ached.

"Hmmm...." said he. "That's unusual. Let's give it some time and see if it goes away. Here are some pretty, pretty pain pills for you! And LOOK! A PONY!!"

Only there was no pony. And the ache, it did not go away. In fact, it got worse. So I decided to ride my imaginary pony over to see Dr. Hairy again yesterday.

"Look!" I said, whilst pointing to the tooth in question. It must be noted here that it is most difficult to say "Look!" or anything else intelligible with a finger in one's mouth, but say it I did.

"Look! It still hurts. It aches. It pains me. STILL. The filling DID NOT make it better! So what do you have to say to THAT, Dr. Hairy?"

Dr. Hairy then took out instruments of torture. A scrapey thing. A tappy thing. A plastic thing he made me bite down on several times. And after ten minutes of painful testing, he went to consult with another colleague. A digital x-ray was taken.

"So," said Dr. Hairy, "Are you busy tomorrow afternoon? Say around 3:00 p.m.?"

Realizing he wasn't offering me dinner and a movie, I asked what he might have in mind.

"It seems as though, at least we're almost positive, you are in need of a asd;ljfahdal and tomorrow is the first opening we have."

"A asd;ljfahdal???"

"OK now, don't get upset, because they've come a long, long way since you last had one. They're DIGITAL now, and we don't use those hand files anymore, and we promise to give you lots of gas and you really won't feel...."

"ARE YOU TELLING ME I HAVE TO HAVE ANOTHER FRIGGIN' ROOT CANAL DONE???"

"Would you like some more pretty pain pills? Yes, as a matter of fact we are talking about a...a...root canal. And we think that tomorrow would be..."

And then I didn't hear any more because my head exploded right there in the dentist's office.

So today will find me, fragmented head and all, back at Dr. Hairy's. I will have my MP3 player, my death grip, my Xanax, and a wish to be almost anywhere else but there.

I just hope they can get my jaw open.