Having regained the feeling in my face, I feel that I am able once again to post something here. Yes, I have recently returned from the medieval torture that they refer to as “dentistry.” And, because of this and my workload, I’ve chosen not to do an audio biography today.

I had a cavity. A tiny little hole in my tooth. Or so I was told. I trusted the dentist, who tells me all sorts of things I am unable to confirm or deny. You see I do not have any knowledge of dentistry that I didn’t learn from watching television. And, in those cases, the dentists were usually some sort of torturer bent on causing you pain that you never imagined.

Today’s experience wasn’t painful, unless you count some steely pricks from a needle filled with Novocain. (I can see it now . . . Thousands of google searches for “Steely Pricks”.) However, my face has been numb since ten this morning. Lovely. And when my face came down from its inert, rubbery high I was blessed with a bizarre burning sensation that only Lazarus and John Wayne Bobbitt must know. The sudden rush of feeling back into a body part. In this case, my face.

Because of this numbness I spent my usually enjoyable lunchtime with only half a tongue. The left side of my mouth was able to enjoy lunch. The right side was indifferent, like a mafia wife going through the motions to please her man. Add to that the unbridled fear that I was actually devouring the inside of my mouth and thinking I was enjoying the tangy goodness that is honey barbeque pretzels, and you have to sum total of a total washout. It was like there was a party in my mouth and everybody forgot to come.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent human being. And, yet, I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to become a dentist. I can think of a thousand things more interesting than staring down people’s throats every day. Plus, you can be lucky and set up your practice in an affluent neighborhood where people buy Crest Whitening Strips. Or, you can set up your practice in an area that serves crack whores (seven teeth total). I just can’t imagine spending my days pondering gum disease and infected abscesses. It’s just not in my nature. (Though, to be honest, I would prefer that to being a podiatrist. I fear other people’s feet. I can’t explain why. Call it an anti-fetish.)

You sit in the chair with so little feeling in your mouth that, for all you know, the dentist could be installing a satellite dish in your head. And you’re happy to do it because you don’t want to be the guy that the news crews come to when something happens in your neighborhood. You, with your rotten, blackened teeth explaining, “I ain’t even got to sleep when that thar power transformiter blowed up. First things I thought of was my El Camino. That’s what I use to collect all them aluminums cans so’s I can get the ‘cyclin money from them.”

You open wide. Something your mother never taught you to do. (She didn’t? Mine did. “Son,” she said, “never open your mouth for a stranger. I don’t care how much money they promise you, no good can come of it.”) You’re staring into a blinding light while a bemasked human being inserts power tools in your mouth.

Granted, these are tiny power tools. Brilliant inventions of pseudo-nanotechnology that probably couldn’t hurt you. Much. But, still. Once they start grinding on your teeth, you begin to wonder if the dentist backed a backhoe into your mouth.

The sickening, high-pitched sound is horrible. And your jaw begins to cramp because the dentist is holding your mouth open, putting his foot on your chest and bracing himself for impact.

I wonder what dentists do when they go home? I suppose they do the same stuff we do, but I often wonder if they have studies, paneled with faux walnut and filled with plaster teeth and models of Mr. Yuck Mouth.

I suppose I’m lucky now. My dentist is a very pleasant, albeit financially reckless and bitter, woman who seems to enjoy her job and the conversations with her shrill assistant with a cartoon voice. In the past, my dentist was a chain-smoker. And this was back in the days before they used gloves. He’d go in au-natural and I’d walk out with Winston breath.

Still, it’s not a pleasant experience. Now she wants to take out my wisdom teeth. She won’t knock me out. She promises. “I’ll give you a valium drip. You’ll be awake, but you won’t remember anything.”

Yay! Just like college.