The Dentist

Dentists are evil and must be destroyed.

This morning I had my first cleaning with a new dentist in Silver Spring. Granted, I hadn't been for a dental cleaning in a long while because Gallaudet's health insurance covers its students about as much as Britney Spears covers her no-no parts. Still, I feel that my cleaning was unusually harsh and unnecessarily painful, like spraying alcohol on a paper cut when all you really need is a band-aid.

The year is 2008, people. Teeth have been around quite a while; they are not a new phenomenon in the evolution of our species. Therefore, I believe it is a serious disappointment that in our advancement as conscious beings we have not yet invented a more suitable way to bring our molars and bicuspids up to their hygienic par.

It's a very compromising position to have your head tilted back and your mouth gaping wide open, like a baby bird in a nest waiting for its pre-digested meal from mommy. You are at the complete mercy (or lack of mercy) of the hygienist or dentist- who could obviously use a seminar or two on empathy and compassion for human suffering. What ever happened to "do no harm"?!?

That little scraper they use to grind in between the teeth and gums is barbaric yet surprisingly legal. I swear my dentist was using it like a pickax going after gold in some cave. I was clutching the sides of the chair and wincing when I opened my eyes and silently pleaded with the man to leave me in peace- in peace!!! And the only thing this bastard could say was "Wow, the rain is sure coming down hard, isn't it?" Yeah, the rain is very interesting, especially when you're trying to saw my face in half.

I think dentists take it personally when you haven't been for your checkup in a while. They're like a disgruntled date who is steamed that you didn't call soon enough, only in this situation the date has unlimited power to maximize your pain-- and then you actually pay for it!!! They always give you that look like "Oh ... you haven't been back promptly at 6 months ... well, I hate to see you suffer, but I have a contract with Satan and must do as he bids ..."

It must be a very dissatisfying experience to know that your entire career is disliked by the general public- quite like auto mechanics, telemarketers, and Richard Simmons. But dentists are consoled by the mantra they say to themselves every morning-- "Because of plaque, they'll always come back".

And so we do, and so we shall, until modern medicine actually becomes modern. Until then, I fear that these closeted S&M fetish-ers will have free reign over our cake holes and continue to manipulate the population with their scrapers, water pics, and saliva-slurping vacuums that always seem excessively loud ...

Perhaps that noise is there to drown out the wails of despair from another schmuck down the hall who is suffering an all too familiar fate at the hands of a monster we affectionately call the dentist.