9:45 A.M.
We pull up outside the ramshackle little bunker marked "Dentistry," where they apparently perform obscene forms of torture, and dabble in tooth removal. Even outside, I can already hear the loud, high-pitched agonized screams, followed by the calm but firm repetitive question, “Is it safe?”
I look hesitantly around the snowy parking lot. My mother is with me, but not making an active effort to talk to me. We were just in a fight over a movie we’d seen, “The Wolf on Wall Street.” I thought it was genius, she thought it was porn, and the only aspect of the film we’d been able to agree on so far is that Jonah Hill probably doesn’t actually have a penis.
I push open the doors and enter the quiet little lobby. Someone had the bright idea of playing Barry Manilow music very loudly to try and mask the screaming. In reality, though, this just makes the experience more painful.
I’m here to have my "wisdom teeth" removed. I use the quote marks for two reasons: 1) because they appear during my high school years (the time God specifically carved out for me to make really bad decisions in) and 2) because they are obviously the dumbest teeth in my mouth. All the other teeth, canines, molars, incisors, all got the memo that they’re supposed to be vertical. These Einsteins, however, decided “Derp, let’s grow in sideways!”
10:03 A.M.
The screaming has subsided and is now replaced by the refreshingly loud pitiful whining. To be honest, I’m not sure if it was the patient or Barry Manilow making the noises, but that’s immaterial. At this point, the dentist strides into the waiting room.
He looks horrifyingly similar to Mads Mikkelsen from “Hannibal,” which is bad, because if he has me doped up on laughing gas, it will be very hard for me to beat him at mind games and clear myself of murder.
10:07 A.M.
The doctor is explaining to me the exact procedure. I’m not really listening, more interested in the weird pictures on his walls. There seems to be a "wolves brutally disemboweling elks" motif, one that hardly puts me at ease for the coming experience.
Hannibal finally seems to be at the end of his tirade. He puts a bottle of pills on the table. “We’re giving you this for the pain, afterwards, Riley. It’s called Percoset. One pill will cause you to fall into a trance, completely numb to all sensation."
“Uh… am I really going to need a medication that strong?” I asked, now a little more than apoplectic. The dentist leans closer. “No, but, y’know, Pink Floyd’s going to be touring around the tri-state area, and I thought those puppies might come in handy if you were to go see them.” I give him a confused look, and he laughs, jovially. “I was a teen once, too, sonny.”
I’m pretty sure I was just part of a drug deal. I’m not sure what I do at this point. Thank him? Offer to melt a guy in his bathtub? I try to run through all the "Breaking Bad" episodes I’ve seen to look for some sort of drug-dealer-etiquette, but by this time, the gas mask has been put on.
10:13 A.M,
At this point, nitrous oxide has completely flooded my system. And drugged-up me has suddenly decided he’s the moral philosopher of the century.
I tap the dentist on the shoulder and point to a painting of a wolf chewing on an elk’s bones. I try to formulate a legitimate argument about how such a picture could make patients uneasy, but what comes out instead is “Wolf got bones. That’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.”
Hannibal smiles politely as he stabs a drill into my gums. I barely notice.
The gas mask releasing the laughing gas reminds me a lot of the ones worn in WWI. Not only that, it makes my voice sound like Grumpy the Dwarf from "Snow White." I try to make some joke about this, but it comes out as a loud, ninety decibel proclamation, “THE DWARVES WON WORLD WAR 3!!!”
The dentist looks at one of his nurses, and mutters something about "get the sedative, they don’t pay me enough to deal with this crap." All of a sudden, "comfortably numb" starts playing somewhere deep inside my brain, and I’m falling backwards into an inky black pool of warm nothing. The last thing I can hear is the dentist: “Hey, $5 says I can fit a tennis ball in here!”
Unknown time, Destination: Funkytown
I’m floating in a sea of black, warm air, comfortable and calm. All of a sudden, a seal is flopping it’s way towards me. “Riley, you have to run, before they get you!” it beseeches. For some reason, it sounds exactly like Woody Allen, and for some even weirder reason, I decide this thing is trustworthy. I follow it, but only for a few paces before it is consumed by fire.
Wilford Brimley stands before me in the robes of an ancient mystic tribe. “Diabeetus,” he says. And soon I am surrounded by Wilford Brimleys, all with fiery red eyes, chanting “Diabeetus, Diabeetus, Diabeetus!”
Their mustaches grow, long white tendrils, searching for me... wrapping around my throat…
11:00 A.M.
“Ta da! All done!”
I slowly return to reality. The dentist has stuffed my mouth full of cotton.
I figure I’m probably fine and decide to get up and walk to the waiting room. This results in me doing an odd, ritualistic boogie/rain dance across the floor, and knocking into a cabinet. One of the nurses tries to stop me, but I grab her shoulders and scream, “I’m the Godfather!” while pointing to the cotton stuffed pouches in my cheeks.
Somehow, I manage to get to the car. My mother has packed me a lunch: applesauce and a water bottle. However, my lips are still numb from the drugs, and so I end up pouring the water all over my lap, and spreading applesauce across my face like an icky rouge.
11:15 A.M.
I’m sitting in the back of the car, watching "The Muppets" movie. I love "The Muppets," but under these high-out-of-my-mind circumstances, it doesn’t really make as much sense.
“Ermagerd… why is der pig so mean to der lizard?” I inquire of the screen. I get no response. The Swedish chef comes on, and I immediately begin to cry. No one can understand what he’s saying, but he still follows his dream of being a chef. How tragic.
As I fade into oblivion again, it all of a sudden hits me: I never picked up those drugs he gave me…
