The Torture Chamber

For many people, going to the dentist is akin to going to a torture chamber. Let’s face it, like in any profession; there are good dentists and, well, not so good ones. Unfortunately, the latter was the case when I lived in Branson, Missouri. I’d sooner clean all the public restrooms in Branson with my tongue then let him work on me again. In fact, he made me wonder if part of his education included a class called The Art of Tormenting Patients.

I’d lost a filling in a tooth and consequently needed a root canal and a crown, requiring a few visits to the only dentist in town, Dr. U. Wil Hurt.

The appointment began harmlessly enough. I’d settled into the dental chair and the doctor’s assistant chained a little napkin under my chin…and that’s when the anxiety began. I mean, what was that napkin for anyway, to absorb some expected profuse bleeding? The imagination can run wild when one becomes anxious.

Next, the assistant leaned my chair into a comfortable reclining position, and just as I began to relax and even drift off a little the doctor entered the room and shined a blinding interrogative like light directly into my face. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” I instinctively yelled. Then I turned red-faced as I realized I was in the dentist chair, not the police station being questioned.

Now the fun really began. The doc grabbed a Q-tip with some kind of numbing gunk on it and jammed it into my mouth, around the area of the bad tooth. Now, this Q-tip was no ordinary one. No, it was the size of a rhinoceros leg and had enough cotton on the tip of it to absorb the Missouri River. It dang near choked me to death, and as I gagged on it the dentist gave a look that convinced me he thought he had a real wimp on his hands. He was right.

Once the good doctor felt the Q-tip had been in my mouth long enough to do its job (two or three seconds maybe), he yanked the thing out of my mouth, reached behind him to a hidden tray, and grabbed a shot full of Novocain. From the feel of the needle he jammed into my gums, I was glad for that blinding light in my face—if I’d have seen the size of the shot needle I would have jumped out of that chair and heading for home in a nanosecond.

After ramming that horrible needle into several places in my mouth, making eyes water and my body tense up from the pain, he left the room to work on another patient, while waiting for my mouth to lose all feeling. You know how the dentist knows when your mouth is numb enough to work on? By the amount of drool running out of the corner of your mouth and dripping on the floor, as if you’re doing a poor imitation of Hooch, the constantly salivating French Mastiff in the movie Turner and Hooch.

Anyway, Masked, goggled, and gloved—you’d think I was an alien from Mars with all of the protective devices he and his assistant wore to work me—the dentist, elbow deep in my mouth, proceeded to tightly screw a clamp to my gums. Why? I don’t know, but you can trust me on this one no amount of numbing of the mouth will kill the excruciating pain of that clamp. Again my eyes watered up. Again the doctor gave me a look that let me know he believed I’m a certified wimp.

Once the clamp was secured, the dentist noticed I was gurgling and gasping for air, drowning in a mouthful of my own drool, so he had his assistant vacuum out the saliva with a little hose whose suction rivals any commercial vacuum cleaner. That thing could suck the brains of an elephant out through its trunk. I swear I could hear my tongue being ripped from my mouth. I’m surprised the rest of my fillings weren’t sucked out of my teeth buy that little beast.

Next, the dentist asked his assistant to hand him some weird named tool, which was nothing more than a dwarfed jackhammer, and he began drilling the bad tooth. Except for the stench of drilled tooth and the occasional swallowing of tooth chips, things started moving along smoothly. But that was short lived.

Sometime into the procedure, the drill slipped from my tooth and bore right into my tongue. I arched in my chair like a scalded cat and let out a howl that would put a coonhound to shame.
As Doctor Hurt looked at the pain showing in my once again watering eyes, he said, “best watch where yer puttin’ that tongue there, son.”

My mind filled with many expletives to call him, but he was up to his forearms in my mouth with a drill in his hand. I kept the expletives to myself.

Finally, at the end, and after making what seemed like a million impressions of my dead tooth, with the most gosh awful disgusting tasting stuff you could ever have in your mouth, I was released from the torture chamber.

On my way out, Miss dental assistant offered me the most dazzling piece of advice, overstating the obvious, “be sure not to chew on that side of your mouth for the next few weeks.
No problem. Once the Novocain wore off, my mouth was so sore from the needle poking and tongue drilling that it was a chore just to eat chicken soup.

After experiencing such an ordeal you might wonder if now I’m a bit reluctant to see the dentist. Well, let’s just say after that visit, if I’d had another tooth go bad, I planned on giving a pair of pliers to my ex wife and let her yank the thing out of my mouth.

Hey, it would’ve provided satisfaction in a couple of ways: it would’ve been less painful for me than Doctor Hurt’s torture chamber, and the ex-wife would’ve taken great pleasure in putting a hurting on me; a win, win situation if ever there was.