Digging for gold in all the wrong places

Today I went back to the dentist, and I’m here to tell you that it was the worst dental experience of my life. In order to make such a strong statement; surely I must have had extensive work done? Root canal, gum surgery, multiple wisdom tooth extractions? No, it was just a routine cleaning.

Back in the day, I recall dental professionals using a simple metal pick to remove build up along the gum line. Apparently, progress in the dental arts often involves more power – like some bizarre real world episode of Home Improvement. If you can imagine Tim Allen as a dental hygienist, then you can imagine what today’s cleaning was like. Yes, this time the metal pick was trailing a cord – the first sign of danger. By the time the hygienist was done I was quite sore. Sore gums, sore shoulders, sore neck, sore fingers – you get the picture. It was the kind of muscle fatigue you gain from every muscle in your body remaining in a constant state of contraction for twenty agonizing minutes. But I’ve got to give that hygienist some credit, not once did she ask me to relax. Now there’s someone who really enjoys her work.

Dear lord! Was that woman looking for metal deposits? I’m sure she was finding plenty of iron, but I hear it’s a bitch to extract from hemoglobin. Maybe she was having a flashback from her harrowing days on an oil platform? I would have gladly given her any information she wanted, if only she would have asked me a question.

The hygienist greeted me with a lecture about the perils of periodontal disease. Who would have guessed she was going to spend the next twenty minutes trying to create the symptoms by hand?