of damsels in distress

It’s impossible to be dignified when you’re at the dentist’s. It doesn’t matter who you are–the biggest business magnate, the slickest playboy–Wolverine–would be reduced to something sort of pathetic in the comfortably reclining dentist’s chair.

There’s something about having your mouth stretched wide while someone pokes their fingers around in your teeth, finding problems they have to fix that you have no idea about, using secret words and phrases that mean nothing to you–“Yeah, Jan, we’re gonna need a OM on the third CB, above the right irascible filigree we’re going to have an A25 jamboree.” Phrases you’re somewhat sure are just for your benefit, but if you ask, are always followed by a thoroughly confusing explanation, to which you simply nod and hope your ignorance goes unnoticed. It doesn’t.

Then they whip out incredible tools–tools that suck and blow in the most shameful way; tools that seem specifically designed to prevent you from swallowing or speaking and forcing little rivulets of drool to run down your chin. All the while, upsettingly attractive assistants wipe you down with practised reassurances. No one is so charming they’re immune to that. Seriously, picture anyone you will, and now imagine them with a little bit of drool on their chin, gurgling nonsensically? Sexy? Hmm. Combined with a light that approximates the sun, shining diligently into your retinas, providing a steady stream of tears to your merely human eyes.

So that was my day yesterday, waiting in an immaculate dentist’s office, full of water fountains and big screen TVs–an humiliating empire which charges you king’s ransoms for the privilege of such humiliation; an industry built on the shaming of simple, honest people who just don’t understand why brushing and flossing are really never enough. 

In other news, I got my phone figured out, and am now in communication with the rest of the world. There’s actually a significant ‘underground’ involved in getting a phone these days, one which I had no idea about. My representative kept assuring me of illicit ways to get me the best deal–ways which he would be fired for were his boss to find out, but were strictly between me and him, “brah”.