I recently lost a filling somewhere. I know I lost it because I could feel a hole in my tooth big enough to stash a chicken wing. I'm not sure where the filling went, but I'm guessing it's probably sitting in the bottom of my stomach with a nickle, some erasers, and a few other indigestible items that have had the misfortune of getting too near my mouth over the years.

After a while the tooth-hole started hurting. I held out a few weeks but finally made the dreaded call to the dentist. This is not an easy call to make-- a lot of crazy thoughts go through your head before making a decision of this magnitude. "Maybe I could duct tape it?", "That drywall patch stuff is probably not poisonous.", and "Handfuls of Advil won't do any lasting damage, right?" But the pain eventually became severe enough that I had a really crazy thought: "Hey, maybe the dentist is not so bad after all?"

So I went to visit the dentist. All dentists have a one hour minimum wait strictly enforced by the Dentists of America and Crest. The wait is a kind of hypnotic pre-anesthesia. The dim lighting, the antiseptic smell, and the Muzak of the 70's and 80's make you very, very sleepy. I was just entering a trance from staring at the rubber-tree plant, which I'm pretty sure was staring back, when the Hygenist hissed my name. The Hygenist is the evil assistant of the Dentist...you get the feeling if you don't comply *exactly* with her orders things could get...ugly.

I was escorted down a long door-filled hallway. As I passed each room the patients inside gave me that souless Novacaine stare, blood spattered paper bibs around their necks and mouths stuffed with wads of gauze. Not a pretty sight.