Shins, Toofs & Ears

"Your Nightmares Only Need a Year or Two to Unfold." A surprising lyric for such an instrumentally peppy tune.

I don't know anyone who enjoys going to the dentist (swear there's a connection here), but I really hate going to the dentist. First there are the discouraging memories of gagging on my own saliva as my mouth served as a human mortar, noisy torture devices interchangeably sucking then swirling in gritty pastes the flavor of rotten strawberries. Then I went and added insult to injury by visiting "Sadist Dentist of Chicago Extraordinaire" four years back, which put a final nail in my dentistry coffin.

Ever since, thoughts of dental work have given me the heebie jeebies. I avoided it like the plague until my chops told me there was trouble in avoidance paradise. As suspected, my love affair with sweets came home to roost, and today was the day I went back to pay the piper.

That might explain why, en route to the dentist this morning, I played this song about five times in a row. Despite the occasional foreboding lines therein, it gives me happy happy thoughts and makes me want to dance a little jig.

Contrary to pessimistic expectation, I'm so very pleased to report that my anxiety far outweighed the misery of the actual experience. In fact, I received virtually pain free work c/o "The Gentle Dentist of Chicago Extraordinaire." My faith in dentistry restored, I am again the proud owner of decay-free toofs. Hallelujah!