All Dentists are homicidal, evil fucks
The Dentistry Industry is not a medical profession. It is a fucking racket, a scheme of highly overpaid sadists and thugs who have engineered a legalized way to inflict unfathomable amounts of pain in never-ending cycles of alleged “cures,†and to force its “patients†(what a hypocritical euphemism that is) to expend absurd amounts of money for their alleged services. These immoral, godless, soulless shiteyes are the only people on the planet who could make a CIA interrogator understand the value of mercy.
So, I just got back from the dentist. Round 3 of 3 in my biweekly festival of pain to install a bridge for a tooth that’s been missing for about five years. I thought this was going to be a 20-minute trip. I’ve had crowns before. That’s a quick fix. A little jabbing. A little fitting. Done. They replace the temporary with the permanent and you leave. Right?
Evidently not. The fun starts when they remove the temporary. At this point, whenever the bridge is out the cold air from the office entering my mouth causes the exposed gums to hurt. A lot. Like a nerve pain, but all the nerves at once.
Then the guy jams the permanent in, which at first was literally like fitting a square peg in a round hole. I mean he really had to jam it in with force. Guess what? It was pretty fucking tight. Like too big to fit.
Pull it out (insert pain from aforementioned cold air here), shave it down and shove it in again. Oh yeah, I should mention that every time he pulls it out to shave it down, he cleans it with blasting cold air, so it’s a really cold piece of whatever being shoved on my gums. Imagine shoving a rod full of blasting freon into a bullet wound.
I bite down on it, and I see stars. Pull it out. Shave it down. Shove it in. Stars. Repeat about 15 times. I’m not exaggerating. Every time is a little better, about as much as missing the first minute of a Barbara Streisand movie is better than watching the whole thing.
Then he says he’s going to get the Dentist. He comes in. Nice guy. Seems to have a better grasp on the painlessness thing is, God forbid, so he makes me bite down on a fucking stick, and I just about clocked him.
Jerks the thing out, puts some kind of unfathomable pain inflicting adhesive on it, and shoves it back in for good, I assume in the hopes that this will cause permanent pain, because that’s what it feels like.
His duty done, I’m stuck again with his assistant, who I assume is named Igor. Igor shows me some thick blue floss and asks me if I’ve ever flossed with it before. I haven’t, so he hands me a mirror and shows me how to do it. He sticks the floss point end in at the bottom corner of my teeth. That doesn’t seem so bad. He threads it through and pulls it. Piece of cake. Until I realize the blue floss is attached to a fucking rope. When he yanks the rope halfway through, he then pulls back on both sides underneath the tooth. Now it’s bleeding. But he apparently doesn’t think this is working. So he threads the other side of the tooth and pulls on it until the rope goes completely underneath the tooth from one side to the other. This is when I realize that the bridge is called a bridge because there ain’t nothin’ underneath it, except a fucking piñata of pain.
When I regain consciousness, I ask, “How many times do I have to do that?â€
“Twice a day,†Igor says.
“FOR HOW LONG?!â€
“A week. Have you been rinsing with warm salt water?â€
“Uh… no, not since no one told me to.â€
“If you did, that would heal faster and it wouldn’t hurt as much. Rinse with warm salt water twice a day for a couple weeks.â€
“Thanks for the scoop.â€
I get sent out to the front desk, where the ex-cafeteria lady makes me take a seat so she can do my paper work, which I think is odd. Despite all the other fun I need to do to my mouth, this chapter is done as far as I’m concerned. There’s no paper work. This was paid for a month ago, I’m ready to leave, and I really don’t feel like coming back for more torture if I can put it off for a couple months.
The ex-cafeteria lady tells me she’s ready, then tells me to wait in a different spot, then tells me to come around the other side of the desk again, so she can explain that some twunt at my “insurance†company – no doubt a mastermind of this con – has just now realized there is a little known “clause†that any tooth that was extracted under a different “insurance†company isn’t covered. So on top of the $900+ I’ve already paid, my “insurance†company thinks I should pay the other $700 they originally said they were going to pay.
It’s turned into a bad joke. I’m still throbbing sore at this point, the Dentist won’t so much as give me an aspirin, and now my “insurance†company doesn’t want to pay for any of this. Because in this day and age, I’m apparently a fool for having the tooth extracted under a different “insurance†company. That’s quite a handy little clause, especially considering that the odds of your employer keeping the same “insurance†carrier year-to-year are comparable to winning the Powerball lottery.
Ex-cafeteria lady writes down the “insurance†carrier’s name, etc. on an envelope. You’d think for the thousands of dollars I’d given them over the years, they could buy a notepad, but I digress.
Thanks to red tape, the twunt hasn’t actually processed the claim yet, so ex-cafeteria lady doesn’t expect $700 on the spot. Ex-cafeteria lady asks when I’d like to come in next. I explain that I’d like to talk to the twunt first before I make any commitments. Fortunately, she doesn’t give me a hard time and lets me walk, though that’s probably more fortunate for her sake than mine.
I wish I had some witty punch line, or moral, or even a finale to this. But I don’t. That’s it. That was my trip to the Dentist, Meister of Sadism.
Tomorrow: prs calls the twunt to discuss clauses.
