The Dentist

Yesterday began with a 9:00 dental appointment; the place I never wish to go, but must out of necessity.   First of all, the bed/table you lay on has been designed with arms that you can clench as you are reeling with pain.  The bed gets tilted low and my head tilts almost upside down.  I can feel my weight falling to my chin with the gravity of the position I am in.  With that in place, and after the dental assistant x-rays the tooth in question, and makes an impression, the dentist comes in to do the task at hand.  She first inserts a needle in my gums causing me to groan.  She is injecting pain meds in three parts of my mouth and the needle itself causes pain.  Soon, though, I can't feel the upper side of my mouth.  The assistant puts a vacuum cleaner type hose on one side of my mouth, another on the other side, and squirts water in my throat the whole time.  The assistant pulls my mouth one way and the dentist pulls it the other way and I probably look like Bozo the Clown, with my mouth wide open in all directions.  And then, the drilling begins.  And she drills, and drills and drills.  She is trying to crack  the crown on my old tooth, whereby she can pull it off, but the cement holding it is very stubborn.  I kept swallowing the water the assistant was constantly squirting in my mouth, which makes the drill jump and squeal on another tooth and I had to keep apologizing, but laying upside down with water in my throat, I couldn't help but swallow.  After one squirt, I thought I was going to drown, until the dentist told her assistant to stop with the water already, at which point I thanked God.  It took her a LONG time to finally yank the crown off of my original tooth.  After that, there was still more drilling and cleaning and more impressions, because I had a cavity that was behind the crown and reached into the tooth next to it.  When the assistant said she was finally done, I paid the bill, took a deep breath and waddled out to my car, proud that I endured to the end.  I have to go back in a month for them to cement the permanent teeth in, so I have time to recuperate and gain my courage once again.

This whole ordeal reminded me of when I was a kid and my mother would take us to my uncle, the dentist.  He worked in downtown Chicago, and so we would drive and park at the Skokie Swift, a small train that stopped in Skokie and proceeded into the city.  We would have to transfer to the "L" at some point, and that train was much longer.  It would take us into the heart of the city, down into the subway, which was really creepy.  The lights would flicker on and off and there were always weird looking people on the train.  We got off in the subway and walked upstairs to the street level which was really cool to see.  If you look up, you can barely see the sky because of all the skyscrapers.  It was all overwhelming for a kid my age.  My uncle worked in the old Marshall Fields building and we would go up the elevator to his office.  Back then, when he squirted water in your mouth, you turned to your left and spit it out in a bowl swirling with water.  After you endured the trauma of the dentist, you were given a little toy out of his "treasure chest," which usually broke by the time we got home.  Before we left to go back to the train, we always had to go to the bathroom to"make."  The toilets in this building were locked and you had to put a dime in the door lock to open it.  I will always remember that, because I would wonder what if you didn't have a dime and you really needed to "go."

My children and I actually witnessed this problem one day, when we were driving on the South Side of Chicago.  We all, except Micah, had to "go" and so we stopped at a Burger King off of the Dan Ryan Expressway.  The bathrooms in this restaurant were locked and you had to have a key to get in, but to get the key, you had to buy something.  So I bought a pop and we waited because there was a line to get into the bathroom.  A woman came in very distressed and yelled that she had to go to the bathroom, but the workers told her that there was a line and besides, she would have to buy something in order to "go." Instead, she barreled out the door, and per Micah who witnessed this from the car, pulled her pants down and "made" right there in the parking lot.  She walked away like nothing happened and I think it put Micah into a mild shock.  My personal opinion is that bathrooms should be free and open to avoid unfortunate incidents such as this.

So be forewarned:  if you are driving in Chicago, keep in mind the toilets in fast food restaurants and gas stations are all locked, so you may want to "go" before you reach the city.