All I Want For Christmas..

..is my right back molar to be magically fixed without having to go to the dentist..



When I was a kid I had no enamel on my back molars which meant that my teeth crumbled in my mouth and, as a result, I was eating my own teeth. GROSS. I had oral surgery to extract what was left of the fragments and to fill the rest. I went home from the hospital on New Year's Eve, the proof being that I vaguely remember the midnight cheering, honking, and fireworks in my dream-like, morphine induced trance. I also remember something about Mom getting pulled over by a cop as she was speeding me home so that I wouldn't vomit blood all over her plush Cadillac seats, and Mom saying, "You don't believe me? Look at her! Show him Ginger." But that may have been some sort of mother/daughter telepathy moment while the cop was writing out the ticket - remember, I was stoned - or maybe she later said that that was what she was thinking. Either way, it was sort of a bonding moment in a disturbing yet tender way.

Yesterday when my filling fell out in the middle of C-hall as I was eating a candy cane, (filling in one hand, candy cane in the other), I realized that I would have to go to the dreaded dentist, and memories of that surgery came flooding back. I was so stunned by the occurrence and by the memories that I held up the filling like a kid showing his folks his newly lost tooth, only instead of parental pride beaming back at me, I was startled to recognize the confused (yet amused) gaze of the Fougs -who luckily thinks that sort of thing is cool and not disgusting- and another colleague who was, justifiably, horrified. (Such. A. Spaz.)

The good news is I am not in any pain, other than I am (or rather my tongue is) constantly being reminded that jagged teeth are sharp. The less than good news is that I have to find a dentist, endure whatever "procedure" he recommends, and then hope that I can take some sort of pain medication that is Poyo* safe. Plus, our fabulous HMO insurance provider makes us pay extra for dental coverage which means that we, who were rightly more concerned with using the money for life insurance when we signed the policy form, will have to pay the full price for the extra pain. Yay. Screwed by The Man again! You'd think I'd like it by now or at least be used to it.

Fortunately for me, I wont have time to deal with any of this until after the Christmas break. So as with all things that are inconvenient, I'll ignore the problem until I am forced to deal with it. :) But I'll think about that later..

* Poyo is what we call our unborn child which may or may not be better than what Pa-Paw (his grandmother) calls him- Cooter Jack. Poor kid. Then again, it could be fodder for the tell all that will make him a billionaire..