Let me start this off by saying that I hate going to the dentist. Nay, I loathe going to the dentist and after a recent holiday trip to get my teeth cleaned, polished, and back in presentable shape, I had to take a moment to ponder something: did it ever occur to anyone that maybe dentists are just in it for the pain? Please, stop a moment to consider this. The way I see it, if the main tools for your profession include a drill, syringes, and gas then you’re probably geared for euthanasia over fixing rotting molars. I mean come on, this is clearly a job designed with the sadist in mind.

In case you haven’t visited a dentist lately, times have changed. They no longer let you see the doctor right out. Instead, they send in a dental hygienist to get you warmed up for the horror that is to come. First they always decide to take new x-rays for your file. To do this, they make you bite down on what feels to be a rusted bottle cap, then they quickly dose your face with a hefty amount of radiation. From there they scrape, poke, and floss your gums into oblivion for a good twenty-five minutes, you know, just to get that taste of blood in your mouth. That’s the taste of inevitability.

Soon after the first round of abuse ends, you skip to the main event where the dentist comes in and gives you a big handshake and a smile. This smile is just a façade to hide the true evil he hides within. He puts the surgical mask on his face and straps the ball gag on yours. Before you know it, you have a needle poking your gums rapidly like a semi-automatic weapon and the sound of the drill fills your eardrums. After spending forty-five minutes in the recliner of doom gazing into the bright white light, and wishing that angels would appear from it and whisk you away from your torture, you might find yourself wondering why dentists wear those surgical masks. I have solved that mystery and let me tell you, it’s so that you can’t see them smile as you squirm in pain. Why do you think they ask you questions when your mouth is full of gauze, cotton and anesthetic? It’s a joke that never gets old to them. Once in a while through the tears you will see shapes that resemble faces floating over yours and they’ll ask you the big question: “Are you doing alright?” Since there are two hands in your mouth, the only way to answer their query is with the single tear that streams from your eye to your chin. They love that part.

Eventually the torture ends and they attempt to teach you a life lesson by saying “If you would floss better then we wouldn’t have to do this.”
Not only have they destroyed your face, but also your self-confidence. When all is said and done, you have to pay these people for they pain they have inflicted and then you return home and spend the rest of the day wishing that you could feel your mouth, lips, tongue, nose, and eyeballs as you try to drink liquids from a straw and watch it all dribble back out. Each time this happens, a dentist somewhere smiles under his surgical mask.

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