I don’t like going to the dentist.
That doesn’t exactly make me unique, but I do have some reason for my aversion beyond the occasional discomforting appointment.
When I was a kid, we all went to the same dentist on White Plains Road in the Bronx. He wasn’t exactly the kid friendliest dentist around, and that was the least of the problems I had with him.
For one, he apparently needed glasses to see up close. And he never bothered to wear them when working on me.
So, I had the confidence-building vision of him standing over me, squinting into my mouth, as he would begin his work.
On at least one occasion, he pulled the wrong tooth. Meaning, I had a tooth that needed to be pulled, and he pulled a different one. Which meant he had to go back in there and pull the right one. So instead of losing one tooth I lost two, right next to each other.
He also didn’t use shots, everything was nitrous oxide. As Robert Klein once joked, with nitrous oxide you still feel the pain but you don’t give a shit. Until the gas wears off, and then you start caring again.
My mom made our appointments and my dad would take me, so I had no real choice in the matter. When I got older, though, dental appointments were few and far between.
Until I got to Fort Worth, where I finally found a nice dentist that I like. So I have that going for me.