Fred Visits the Dentist
 

Fred sat facing the receptionist window waiting to hear his name.

He had situated himself in the corner in a single chair in order to better observe the room.  Talking to any of the patients was out of the question as it often leads to strangers sticking fingers in their mouths to describe their oral maladies.

Fred felt the same silent behavior one would observe in an elevator is also the way normal human beings should act in any sort of waiting room.  "I don't know you, and I don't want to.", Frank thought as he tongued the aching chasm in his rear molar. 

The lady that schedules the appointments clearly was not in charge of the situation because it seemed that most everyone in the room had gotten there after Fred and those same late-comers were having their names called before him.

And so he continued to wait and laid claim to the better reading materials as they came available.  He had started with a nineteen sixty-two Better Homes and Gardens and worked his way up to a recent edition of The National Geographic.

Frank was indeed the king of the dental office publication hill now.  He was no longer in any hurry to be seen by the "Drill Instructor" because he now had the status symbol for all new "waitees" to envy.  Full color glossy pages gleaming in the recessed lighting openly testified of his patience and long suffering.

He teased others with his coveted periodical by saying, "Hmmmm" and sitting forward in feinged interest and obvious concentration. His tranfixed state was broken by the strain of an assistant beckoning him into the inner sanctum of her hygenic lair.

"That was fast", smiled Fred as he gathered himself for his moment in the spotlight. The other waiters which surrounded him greedily eyeballed the Geographic and would soon jump on it like polite hyenas in a petulant feeding frenzy.

Fred dropped his trophy and toddled off into the room of pain.  He notice sharp instruments of torture stacked neatly next to his seat.  Having seen "The Marathon Man" with Dustin Hoffman, Fred was aware that dentists can hurt you badly if they so desire.  He had no siblings in the CIA or any siblings to speak of so he felt pretty confident of the motives of this capable mouth digger.

Regardless, Fred was always mister friendly and cooperative whenever  on the premises.  He lay back in the imitation leather chair and took an anxious breath of nervous trepidation.

First, the assistant, (we'll call her Dawn), stated new x-rays were needed and placed a giant leaded lobster bib across Fred's unathletic chest.  Then "bite wings" were manipulated into his mouth to hold the teeth in place.  Upon being told to bite down the wings poked him stringently in the roof of the mouth.  What fun.  Today was the day for his long awaited crown.

Was he King for a day sitting upon his noble throne? No. He wasn't even a Duke. He was there because the giant filling he received as a youth had finally given way causing him to ingest vast amounts of "ibooprofun" and cough medicine to kill the throbbing in his jaw.

"Through pain comes pleasure", he thought as the second assistant jabbed his gums with a needle of novacaine.  "Would you like to read something while we wait to get numb?", Dawn #2 asked.  And then as he gandered at the rack of  magazines it dawned on him that the dang dentist had been hording all the good reading material in his special rack!

There was a Popular Mechanics featuring an article on stealth technology for battleships and an Outdoor Life that discussed how to make yourself smell like a deer so you can get close enough to kill one.

Wow.

And the crappy thing about the whole situation is there would not be enough time to enjoy the treasure he had found.  Just as soon as he had began to enjoy his first article the dentist popped his head with the mask and jewelers glasses into the room and said, "Are we numb yet?"   Fred shook his head in a positive gesture and said, "Yowf", which in dental school terminology means, "Yes."

Slobber was coursing down Fred’s limp chin as the dentist eased the chair back by depressing his little automatic foot pedal.  The descent of the chair was a smooth and magnificent ride which attested to years of meticulous German precision engineering.  As Fred lay recumbant, he tried diligently to find a comfortable postion for his hands and arms.  The little arm rests were not long enough nor wide enough to afford any means of practical support for his limbs and flanges.  He thought the Germans should have installed handy dandy wrist loops for him to hang his arms from.  So in an ode to neccessity, Fred jammed his hands  into his pockets and let his arms dangle from the chair.

By this time the doctor of dentistry was probing Fred's mouth with a mirror and began to jam a wedge between his back teeth to hold his mouth at bay. 

And then he started to drill.

And then Fred realized his mouth was not yet numb.  "Owww", Fred said, which in dental terms means "Owww".

The dentist proceeded to give poor Fred four more injections all around the tooth of the day and said there were some big nerves in that particular area.  Fred thought this matter should have been addressed before a diamond-tipped drill bit spinning at six thousand revolutions per minute was placed into his mouth and onto his convalescent tooth.  Dawn, (#1), placed some cool sunglasses on Fred's head and sucked all the saliva from his mouth with a powerful suction tube.  She then added some water to the mix and demanded him to close his mouth around said tube until his sinuses gave a distinct grunt.

 Fred noticed the room was very clean and hoped for the same regarding the  instruments intruding his orifice.  He did however, notice the lens on the spotlight was smeared with all manner of questionable debris which could only be spotted while lying in his current position.

Did the dentist never work on the assistant’s mouths?  Did she never see the dirty light? Did she only clean the things the dentist would notice?  And where did the dentist go when he needed his jaw jacked open?  A thousand questions whirled thru Fred's mind in sync with the vibration of the inhumane drill.

Another fourty-five minutes of drilling, grinding, biting, jacking, poking, sucking and grunting passed and the dentist took off his gloves. "Well Fred", the richer dentist grinned, "That's just a temporary crown.  The permanent crown will be ready in two weeks and then we can take care of that root canal."