So, as some of you may know – about 2 years ago (fuck, has it been that long?), I went under the dentist’s drill to have my entire upper row of teeth fix0red. And by fix0red (read : fix-or’d), I mean every tooth in the upper part of my mouth was drilled down to a stub and then capped with a shiny white new tooth. Or “toofus” as we like to say in the ghetto. Pretend I live in the ghetto. It’s funnier that way.
If you’re painfully curious how awkward that looked, I took the liberty of taking some pics that day and putting up a page on my site for it : http://revmitcz.com/teeth
It’s been about a year since I’ve been to the dentist for any kind of check-up, despite his office calling to remind me I should come in for a cleaning. I suck at remembering to do important things that don’t either get me laid or bring me money. Ergo.. I didn’t make an appointment to see him. Fucker must be psychic, though, cause sometime last week I had 4 corners of my mouth in serious fuckin’ pain.
On the lower left, I have a tooth that’s been causing me pain for as long as I can remember. It’s been drilled. Ripped open. Root canals. Crowns. You name it. Now, it’s a mere shadow of a tooth. It sits just above my gumline as 4 little white shards sticking up with a little island of metal and tooth fragments in the middle. Furthermore, there’s a huge gap between it and the tooth behind it. So, now that little area has decided to rip open and bleed at random intervals throughout my day and drop little pain bombs in my mouth so I can’t focus on fuck-all. As I write this, the Vicodin army is on their way to take care of the little bastards but it’s a slow and still-painful process.
On the top part of my mouth, the left side has decided to bleed along the gumline for no reason and also drop little pain bombs. The right side, apparently thinking it’s a fun trend, also decided to throb in pain for no reason at all. The lower right side… well, shit I guess it didn’t wanna be left out of the party either.
All of this culminated in “ow!” for about a week straight (and I mean at ALL hours of the day). I called the dentist, he scheduled me for earlier today.
When I arrived, I realized it was noon and while I’d been up since 9am (fuck mornings, btw) – I hadn’t eaten any food yet. Since my dentist is a sadistic bastard (but also a little sweetheart, awww) and has this uncanny way of convincing me that painful dental work is always a good idea, I didn’t want to risk him drilling into my head and then I’d be unable to eat, and end up starving throughout the day.
So, I checked in at his office and walked down to the food court area (his office is at the 7+Fig center in Downtown). I needed something quick and filling. I spot… ARBY’S! Umm.. I haven’t had Arby’s in like 5 years. I remember there was a reason I avoided Arby’s like the plague – but I couldn’t remember exactly WHAT the reason was. I got that refresher this afternoon.
While eating this “meal” of Arby’s, I came up with a theory that just before beef gets tossed into the Slim Jim factory for usage as 2nd-rate beef jerky, Arby’s sneaks into their warehouse and steals it and puts in a sandwich. If you call that a sandwich. Then, not to be outdone by genuine cheese – they use this weird liquid cheese. It’s like that shitty movie theatre cheese you get with movie theatre nachos. Ya know, with the synthetic “spicy salsa” bits in there that you just quickly try to swallow and ignore completely lest you cover the person sitting in front of you in post-nacho vomit. A lovely visual, I’m sure. And while it might bring some needed excitement to.. say, any of George Lucas’s recent failed attempts at filmmaking, it’s not something I want on my 2nd-rate almost-beef-jerky “Beef & Cheddar” Arby’s sandwich.
Let me just put it this way..
In the court of taste that exists in my mouth, Arby’s is inadmissible as evidence of food. My taste bud lawyers throw its ass straight into the stomach and scold it vehemently. Don’t get me started on the judge and jury…
Enough about Arby’s.
So, Doc’s got me in there and he’s speaking dental code about mandibular psycho-kinesthetic doojobbies (why’s he gotta be all technical?) and basically it comes down to “so I’m gonna be ripping a few of your teeth out next week, and we’ll give you a thorough cleaning to clear up the gumline issue. Might need to go in there and pick away at part of the gums to….mumblemumbledentistspeakblablabla”. Needless to say, it’s going to be costly and painful (c’mon Double-Whammy!) and it’s gonna suck but at least I won’t have a mouth full of throbbing pain bombs droppin’ like flies (and like my fresh rhymes, y0) every few minutes.
Since my first time going to this wonderfully shining example of modern-day dentistry (and I’m not being facetious here), my credit rating has increased about tenfold. That is to say, they couldn’t get me approved for so much as $500 when I went in 2 years ago, and today I opened a $4k line of credit there. That takes care of about 2/3 of my current past-due bill, so at least I don’t have to worry about large payments for awhile.
That having been said – anyone else ever sat and thought about the price of dentistry? Seems to me you could open up a dental office after a quick trip to Home Depot. Let’s compare..
They use : Dental Drill. $400
You could buy : Dremel, with 100+ attachments. $40
They use : Porcelain fillings. $500/tooth.
You could buy : A porcelain toilet, and file it down w/the dremel. $60.
They use : Fancy dentist chair. $3000
You could buy : Lawn furniture. 4 lounge chairs : $100.
Now, what else? Electricity? Psh. $200/month, TOPS. X-Ray machine? Okay, so that’s a little pricey. But after the initial investment, it can’t be that much can it? My doc is a total uber-geek like me, so he buys all this fancy shit and shows it off to me and gets all excited. I almost get excited with him, but then I realize he’s gonna use it to cause me pain and my excitement subsides. The point is – his X-Ray machine takes digital pictures and transmits them wirelessly to the file server running in his office which can be pulled up on any of the plasma screens he’s got installed in each room. So, let’s call the X-Ray machine “a fancy digital camera” – what’s that, $5k maybe?
Yet, the price of my upper mouth was.. well, I can’t divulge the price because I got a massive discount, but the standard rate is about $25k.
Fuck that shit. I’m hittin’ home depot and pickin’ up “Dentistry for Dummies”. I’ll show that Dentist!
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