In a few weeks, I’m supposed to let my dentist shave my back molar to a nub and glue a fake tooth on top of it.
I hate dental work. I even clench my fists during routine cleanings. “You doing okay?” the hygenist calls out over the shriek of the bandsaw aimed at my teeth. “Ar hrr,” I gargle nonchalantly, my legs tightening in a fight-or-flight reflex.
The tooth has been sensitive to hot and cold since winter. I’d open my mouth on a particularly frozen day and feel a distinct click. In time, I learned to temper the cold water from the company cooler with a few pulls from the hot tap. Adapt and ignore, adapt and ignore.
“Root canal,” my dentist said back in January after looking at an X-ray. “So there is a cavity,” I replied, dejected. “No, no cavity,” she said. “Root canal. You want to schedule it?”
“You might not need a root canal,” said my new dentist. “I don’t see anything wrong with the tooth, but the enamel is probably cracked.”
So, spared the root canal, I’m wallowing in a whole new realm of anxiety; find me one person with a crown who doesn’t have a story in which the dental imposter tumbles from its secure location.
“It’s not going to come out,” Renate says, rolling her eyes.
Can’t you see it? I’m enjoying a relaxing vacation on a tropical island, absent-mindedly chewing the ice chunks in my frozen margarita, when uh-oh! Is that my tooth or more ice? Even worse: I’m scavenging for food in a post-apocalyptic world and I bite into a block of hard-earned but overly-hardened cheese…
There are no dentists in a post-apocaplyptic world. I have 17 days in which to bail, or at least find another dentist.