[266] Screed City

[266]

10/08/2023 Sunday. Kitchen Microwave. Queens House. Ridgewood, Brooklyn.

Well, I did it. I mean, we did it. I mean, the Hygienist did it and I sat there in horror as it happened, but it is done. My teeth are officially scraped. Here's to new beginnings.

It was expensive and just the beginning, but it was worth it. Last Saturday I went in for my first session. The Hygienist was quite nice. A middle aged Puerto Rican woman who has been doing this work for 27 years she told me. Had never seen it this bad, she told me. She slathered my gums in some numbing cream and waited a few minutes, then stuck me with a needle no fewer than eight times. Asked me which part of my mouth was the numbest. I answered honestly, I don't know. She asked me to decide. I said, the bottom, maybe? She said, well I injected the top first, so let's start there. Okay. I mean, whoa boy. She went deep, so deep she almost put my ass to sleep. I was in a pain trance. The noise was the worst. The bone-squeal going straight to my ears. She kept singing along to the pop music tunes playing. Scraping and sucking and spraying. Chunks were flying everywhere. And not Chunks, my dog, but old chunks of who knows what. 20 years of chunks down below. She must have struck every single nerve I had. She kept apologizing and calling me Sweetie or Honey. I mean, and hour straight. She was sweating at the end. Then she sold me some undercoating at $100 a tooth, and I had four bad teeth, so it would be $400 for some "Anti-biotics" because I had it real bad. Which, sure, I believed her in a sense. She was trying to help, but my insurance didn't cover it, so it was out of pocket as the bridesmaids say and all it was was a quick squirt from this baster-thing. And not only that, but she took five x-rays to see where she had missed the build-up. Which, I don't know if that is protocol or not, but that seems like an odd way to check your work, ya know? Let's take a few x-rays to see how I did. She told me to wait until the numbing subsided before I ate anything. That I shouldn't eat anything with seeds. That if I was really hungry I could have a smoothie. Then she sent me on my way.

A week later I was back. Begging for more. My usual 2:30 appointment that nobody seems to understand is a joke, or maybe the joke is just so old and tiresome that they don't, ya know, what is it the bridesmaids say? To dignify is cornerstone of a valored response? Either way, I showed up wet and ready for action. It had been raining. I had to take the train, sadly. Pouring rain.

It was almost the same as the last time. The Hygienist said; 'We doing the right sight this time?' 'Right, I mean, correct, we are doing the right side, correct.' 'Whose on first?' 'Whom is the one that is on first.' 'But who's on second base?' 'You're about to be who gets to second base if you clean these teeth right.' 'The right side, correct? Wait, did you just sexually harass me?' 'Didn't you notice that my teeth are 20% longer than normal?' 'Security!' As they dragged me out of the place I was yelling, 'But my gums! We're so close! My gums!' 'Chew on this knuckle sandwich, pervert!'

Just joking, but there was a moment of whether she meant correct or right and whether I meant correct or right. It got sorted out in time though. She then asked me how I was feeling since the last time. I said I was depressed about my gums and my teeth and she said, 'Don't you worry about it. The past is the past. The good thing is that you still have your teeth. We can do what we can do." I mean, that is verbatim. I was like, okay, I guess I don't need to go to a therapist, I can just come and get my teeth cleaned by this wonderful woman and she can tell me to knock my stupid shit off and I can move on with my life. It was quite refreshing, her speech. And she's right. And I needed to hear it. Even if I did fuck my shit up in the last year or so by doing stupid shit, it was mere coincidence that my gums started behaving the way they have. The real culprit was 20 years of neglect.

But my right side. The correct side. Was a lot more work than my left side, apparently. She was sighing and sighing, saying stuff like, 'Oh boy.' I went in thinking the day would be much more easy than the last Saturday. That my left side was much worse. That this would be a quick one. In and out. Maybe even give me a sugar-free lollipop for doing such a good job being brave. But nope. I could watch her squinting. Grimacing behind her mask. Sweat dripping into my mouth. At one point she pulled something out and told me to hold out my hand. She dropped a black chunk of gravel on my palm. Her blue latex gloves looking saggy. She said, 'This is what I am chipping out.' 'That's not good.' 'No, it's not, but don't worry, we'll get you sorted.'

It was rough. It was quite rough. She found a few places where the novocane didn't reach, which was somehow pleasant. The pain was so abstract for the most part. Just sound and time and nerves. But when I could actually feel the metal on skin, taste the blood, I don't know, it was a different kind of pain. When you are just sitting there waiting for it to end it feels like you might be in hell, that that is purgatory, this never-ending moment that refuses to change, but then she digs deep inside and finds a new place to hurt, it is like having a crush in middle school all over again. Fresh emotions you didn't even know could hurt your feelings. But with water and picks and gums and teeth.

This time she charged be for five teeth that needed "Anti-biotic" squirts. Fucking topical anti-biotics? In your mouth? The place where more things happen per minute than anywhere else in your body aside from your heart and your pisser? I mean, a lotion for your wiener, sure, nobody has to whack it all the time, but your teeth? Your gums? I lasted an hour after the squirt before I was drinking something. Water, but still, it was something. And then three hours later I was eating something. Then a couple hours after that I was brushing my fucking teeth. It was bogus. But so what? It's not like I am not going to trust her. I mean, I suppose. She did take five more x-rays. Which, I mean, I have now had 23 x-rays this year of my mouth. That doesn't seem good to me. Butwhatever. I may die at 50 from x-ray poisoning, but at least my teeth will look good.

After she was done she took of her gloves and said, 'Wow, my hands are sweating.' 'Sorry for making you work so hard.' 'No, it's good, I like to see it, I like to see the difference. There is a reason they sent me to do this, a normal person wouldn't have been able to get as much as I did. You're lucky.' I mean, my jokes aside from earlier about who's on first and getting to second base with her, there is something kinky about my dentist office. When I went to set a new appointment for my next visit, six months from now the Hygienist said something in Spanish and the receptionist, a White woman in her 20's who seemed very, I don't even know, too good for her job, or too new, or somehow just enjoyed life, if that is a thing? Said, 'Oh, no, she doesn't speak Spanish." The other receptionist said; 'I understood what she meant.' Then got up and went off to do something. Then the bubbly receptionist said; 'I don't speak Spanish, I wish I did." Half of my face was numb and I was drooling because of it. I said; 'Yeah, I had the choice to take Spanish or German in high school, for some reason I took German.' 'Oh! I love German!' 'Yeah, but Spanish would have been more practical.' 'Where you from?' 'Wyoming.' 'Oooh! I have never been there, I hear it is pretty.' 'Yeah, it is, but the people suck.' 'Really?' 'Well, I mean...'

I spent five minutes dancing around the fact that 400,000 people in the middle of America have essentially joined a cult and it was bad growing up, it was bad in the 90's and it hit a gruesome crescendo in 2016 that has been running at a fever pitch ever since without saying that exactly. That there is a reason I moved to NYC and blah, blah, blah. But here is the thing! She was hitting on me! The receptionist was hitting on my as I was drooling from my numb-ass lips. I mean, it must have been the mustache, right? Correct? I mean, how do I know? Instead of just saying, 'Yeah, right, okay, let's do December 9th at 2:30?' She went off on her own diatribe. Telling me about how she knows French and would love to learn Chinese and she didn't know that people in Wyoming were scumbags and that oh my god, here I am wasting all your time, chewing your ear off, you are good to go if you want. If you want? If I want? I'm drooling on your counter, just spent an hour being scraped and prodded by your in-house sicko and I am good to go? Like I want to hang around and see the scene? I mean, I kind of did, but that is not what she was offering and I was supposed to meet up with Professor Curly shortly to get ready to go out to this thing and et cetera.

Anyway, my point is this; Go to the dentist, otherwise you might find yourself eating a knuckle sandwich in Fist City.

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