My sister L., Georgie the holy dawg’s mommie, drove me into Hartford today so that I might get 22 teeth extracted at the Hartford Hospital dental clinic.

 The surgery took 2 and a half hours of :pinching with lydocaine needles, pulling with various instruments (akin to trying to get a stubborn  nail out of a wall), and some drilling to shatter my molars, in order to yank them out piece-wise.  There were moments of exquisite pain as my surgeon mightily extracted certain intransigent root s  up and out of my mouth, which outside felt like foam rubber. But the lydocaine can't get entirely to the heart of the root....

The Chinese  lady student assistant kept telling me what a good patient I am. Even Dr. P. said, in somewhat pompous tone he has developed as defense and offense, I am sure, “It goes rather well when you have a great patient, doesn’t it? Quite a difference.”  He reminded me of Obama, so serious & professional , but a guarded soul. The gals who came in and out seemed intimidated by him.

I waved ‘bye bye’ to each bloody tooth as it was extracted, blood dripping from roots, blood filling my mouth to be absorbed by much gauze.  The Asian gal found it funny.

This was like a science class for her, learning from the master how to best extract teeth. He had many clever tricks to impart.  He kept up a nonstop stream of comforting intellectual conversation, which, due to his specialization, I couldn’t  completely understand.

At one point he snapped off a crown and it went flying across the room.

‘’Where’d it go,” he said. I pointed to it on the floor.’ ‘Good eye, “ he said.

You might think that being such a fine patient, I would be rewarded by karma somehow, but She had a trick up her sleeve.

…………………………………..

“Last one!” Dr . P said, re. an upper molar. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Pull. Pull . pull.

“Huh, this one had four roots!” he said in truly childlike wonder.His bosses, a Matthew J. Fox type and an older gray-haired man with a beard, kept coming in and asking him how it was going, how I was doing. I was fine . I wasn’t worried about this discomfort. I simply go passive.  If there is pain, so be it. But never actively oppose it, by clenching, maybe.

“ok, “ he said, and opened my plastic bag of dentures. Upper & lower.

This was the triumphant moment I was waiting for. To get my new choppers in & become the new me, the jim with teeth.

“Hm.”

“wissa maffa?” (“what’s the matter?”) I said through new upper & lots of gauze & blood.

‘’These lowers aren’t right. Your lab screwed up. Made complete lowers. But you still got 6 teeth there. So…’’

“whaffa sane? They fudk, uh screwdid za lovers up?”

“Well, yes. I don’t feel like extracting those 6 good teeth. Do you?” slight sly smile.

‘falaphk, no!”

“ok, lemme get your prescriptions and you are out of here, my man”

Hand shakes all around.

…………………………………………………..

Sister L. was livid. “I would be infuriated your dentist screwed this up!

“I don’t think she did, “ I said, out of a protective feeling for the gal, who I kinda liked.

“Who, then? She was supposed to look at them, the dentures when they came in!”

“The lowers were tucked into the uppers. We couldn’t see!”

“Bullshit!”

“Well, L. I got my uppers, and you like em, yeah?”

“Oh my god yeah. I never seen you with teeth! You look younger!”

I settled that slippery damn upper back in place, spat out blood, removed red gauze, replaced it with fresh. I looked at myself in the mirror. Argh. Too big. Well, but wait..hm…with the lowers, not bad…yes, I like it.

I wiped the dripping blood off my smile.

 there,goddammit.