The Dentist Wants To Hurt Me. A Lot.

I fully admit it. I’m a big baby when it comes to pain. Shots: I need to bite on those Popsicle sticks (or a bullet) and look away. Give Blood: Not intentionally, only when I fall or pierce and then pass out. Papercuts: I scream like a schoolgirl who just found her boyfriend making out with her best friend behind the locker room.

I have good reason for this behavior…! When I was 12 I was in the hospital for appendicitis and the young nurse-in-training at the time poked my arm to get blood and inadvertently hit my bone. It hurt. A lot! (In fact, It hurts me now just thinking about it). My entire body never forgot that shivering internal feeling. And to a 12- year old boy I don’t care how hot that nurse was. She was the devil. All her flirting and sneaking me ice cream didn’t help either. O.K. at the time, maybe just a little.

So imagine my reaction when I got a toothache last week and didn’t tell anybody (well, my wife) about it until it got really bad. I only go to the dentist for nothing more than a cleaning. I’ve been pretty good about cavities since I was in Jr. High (haven’t really had any since then)…. but for this I had to grudgingly see the dentist. She told me I needed something called “crown” (...huh? like prince Charles or the Burger King, King?). When I didn’t understand what that meant she literally drew me a picture on a post-it (ahh, now that’s speaking my language!) of a tooth, being shaved down, being drilled and then being capped. When I realized what they were going to do, I told them “Look! Mel Gibson is waiting in the lobby”, and then I ran away. (I’m writing this from a cave in Guam.)