The cavefish is cranky

I have an overwhelming fear of the dentist.

In my defense, I'm not just a big baby. I've had some bad dentists. The first was Dr. Meele, my childhood dentist. He was old and cranky and mostly blind. He would stick a finger into the corner of my mouth and pull until I thought my eyes were going to pop out. He would yell at me as the tears streamed down my little 7-year old face. When he was done performing his sadistic rituals on me, he would offer me a candy machine ring. Without the ring and the vast Dr. Suess collection in the waiting room, I would have fought harder for the opportunity to let my cavities go unfilled.

Then there was Dr. Noorani, who was actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, Dr. Noorani went on vacation sometimes, and Mistress Mastrionni took over. I shudder just thinking about it.

My first dentist in New York was Dr. Rossinski, a stern, Russian woman with very little to offer in the way of tenderness. I practically needed a blood transfusion before leaving her office. And therapy, because the entire time she was yanking and scraping and pulling hair and punching me in the face, she was also berating me for smoking and drinking coffee and not flossing enough. Needless to say, a few trips to Dr. Irina put me off the dentist for awhile. Then I got laid off and lost my insurance.

So I finally kicked myself in the ass and made an appointment. Went in today. Waited while people that came in after me went in before me. Finally asked the ridiculously hot boy sitting next to me what time it was, and then giggled at him. 50 minutes I was sitting there! So I go up to the desk and tell them I need to reschedule, because, you know, when you've been out sick for two days you can't exactly spend the whole first day back at the dentist. It just isn't done. They tell me I'll be called in momentarily, that my chart was accidentally taken out of order, so I go back to my seat.

I get called in. I meet the doctor. He seems nice enough, and is not armed with any sharp objects or a menacing glare. He tells me we have a problem. That problem being my newly diagnosed heart murmur. Seems my regular doctor forget to mention I can't get my teeth cleaned with a heart murmur without taking antibiotics first. Because my heart could like, explode or something. Apparently. The dentist wants me to go get a prescription filled and come back later that day. No can do - I tell him I'll make an appointment for next week. I agree to have my X-Rays done, since I'm already there.

X-Ray girl is very nice. We do about 5 shots before she notices the tongue stud. She's not sure if she can take X-Rays with a tongue stud -- needs to go ask someone. They don't know. She needs to find someone else. At this point, I am quite certain I am fired.

Finally, we determine that we can, in fact, leave the tongue ring in, the X-Rays are completed and I head back to work, cranky and late. Dentists and Cavefishes apparently do not mix.