Traumatized

I'm a big baby about the dentist. I realize that this is thoroughly ridiculous coming from someone who paid to have a metal bar shoved through her tongue, but I don't care. There was a trauma when I was 7 that involves a tooth pulling and a dentist who didn't wait for anesthesia to kick in, and the mere thought of sitting in a dentist's chair is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.

So when our insurance changed this year, I put off finding a new dentist as long as possible. But today I finally had to cowboy up.

It was time to get my teeth cleaned.

My new dentist turned out to be a motherly African American woman with a reassuring habit of calling me Honey. I told her I was nervous but she smiled and said not to worry. Then she caught sight of my tongue ring. "How long have you had this ... piercing?" she asked. Distaste fairly dripped from her voice.

And from that point on, I was totally screwed.

First she swabbed my gums with a long Q-tip and - without warning - began jabbing holes in them with a sharp scary thing. Not fun, but I forced myself to stay calm. Then The Most Sadistic Dentist In Chicago handed me a flashlight with a little mirror attached. "I'm just going to show you something," she said sweetly. I got one glimpse of bloody gums and almost passed out.

"I don't think so," I said, dropping the flashlight into her lap. I fought the urge to get out of the chair and run, but I couldn't control the tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes.

The Meanest Dentist Ever had no sympathy. "I don't know why you're crying," she muttered. "This doesn't even hurt." For the next 20 minutes she tsk-tsked and sighed and scraped and poked, and I cried and cried.

By the time she finished, I was shaking all over and had mascara smudged across my face. The World's Evilest Dentist eyed me cooly. "No cavities," she said, sounding slightly disappointed. "But I think we should talk about braces."

Braces! It was the final straw. I pulled off my plastic cape and climbed out of the chair. "Yeah, no," I said, grabbing up my bag and coat. "No braces for me, but thanks."

I was supposed to stop at the front desk and schedule a return appointment for six months but I didn't even slow down. As I fled into the elevator the last thing I heard The Mengele Of Tooth Doctors say was, "And she NEEDS to get rid of that tongue ring."

I cried all the way back to work. Then I ate a Butterfinger. Take THAT, dentists of the world!

Assholes.