The dentists all love me

Yes, the dentists, as well as their compatriots, the endodontists and the oral surgeons, all rub their hands with glee. Dollar signs light up the eyes. They clear their schedules, they work through lunch, they eagerly make follow-up appointments and call each other on the phone, consultating madly together, hemming and hawing in harmony and looking at my (very expensive) X-rays. Hmmmmm, they agree: It doesn't look good.

Not surprising. It never has.

Only two generations ago, people had all of their contrary, infected teeth pulled out--just pull them all out, said my grandmother. I used to wonder how anyone could agree to such a thing, but no longer. I totally get it. JUST PULL THEM OUT has occurred to me any number of times, but the suburban dentists I go to look shocked if you say this, and this is now apparently the equivalent of Dental Blasphemy. It's BAD for your jaw and your bite and all the rest of it. The problems just get worse. You are supposed to have teeth, after all.

I read about Chairman Mao, who had horrific, chronically infected, pus-filled teeth and endured awful pain, and I am inclined to forgive a lot. The poor man was under terrible stress.

Since this past weekend, I have throbbing pain in a tooth that already has a root-canal* and crown--never a good sign. Abscess? The tooth is, God help me, moving around a bit in my jaw (grandmother's voice: Just pull it out!) and there is what appears to be a "cloud" (what?) on the X-ray. The root is possibly infected, and the consult-a-rama has begun.

So, there they are, my dentist and and my fashionable endodontist, who wears designer scrubs to work. (At his prices, I'm surprised we don't get piped-in pharmaceutical heroin and live jams from Eric Clapton himself.) Yes, yes, they sing in well-known dental-harmony, it doesn't look good.

Follow-up appointment on Friday morning, which will make me late for work, then late for home, and a veritable chain reaction of lateness will ensue--all of which will make me significantly crabbier since I am in PAIN. Well, I thought, I possibly can at least lose weight since I can't chew anything... but no, I decided the one thing I can eat is ICE CREAM, and by God, I stopped to do some consulting of my own with Ben and Jerry on my way home.

I hope Chairman Mao at least had some ice cream to make him feel better, too.

*I've had 13 root canals in all, and I'm not sure how many crowns, since several have been replaced already.