It started innocently enough yesterday. I went to get my teeth cleaned, as I do three times a year, since I am a smoker with a frankly kickass dental plan. (Lisa needs braces! Sorry, reflex.) No big deal, although I wondered if the gal cleaning my teeth was a little wobbly that day. At one point, she was attacking an incisor with particular rigor, and then muttered, "Hold on. I've got to turn this up!" She abruptly left the office. When she returned, Billy Joel's "Allentown" was noticably louder on the speakers, and she remarked, "Now I can get this stain."

I just want to note right now that nothing in this post is made up.

Later that evening, I noticed that my lower left gum was a little inflamed. Nothing too bad, but it was tender. I still have all my wisdom teeth, and the left lower one is only partially emerged, so this has happened a couple times before. It usually fades soon. (Why do I still have all my wisdom teeth? Because I'm a big fucking chicken. And honestly, most of the time, they don't bother me at all.) I didn't worry about it much, and gave myself a salt gargle before going to bed.

Then this morning I woke up in some previously uncharted circle of oropharyngeal hell. My gum was hideously inflamed and tender, and even the mere act of swallowing triggered all sorts of awful pain waves. (Smoking did too, but somehow less so . . . gosh, I wonder why?) Despite all this, I went in to work--it'll wear off! Right? Right?--and made it all of about an hour before calling it quits. I rang up my dentist office and explained what was going on.

The receptionist listened to my situation and asked, "On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?" I'll bet there's a reason that so many medical receptionists are female. The tiny sliver of male non-wussiness in me rose up at the question. "Three or four," I muttered. Three or four? Yeah, three or four hundred. But I sure wasn't going to tell that to . . . some woman I've never met before! I'M ALL MAN! But of course I am not all man, since I'm pretty sure my pain tolerance is pretty pathetic. I mean, I can't even handle getting hiccups.

ANYWAY. They agreed that I should be looked at, and so I bailed out of work for a 10:00 appointment. Dr. J. (yeah!) took a look at my ruined mouth. At first he didn't see it . . . which didn't make me very confident. But he had been looking in the wrong place, because then he made this "UH!" noise, like someone who has just discovered a dead cat in his easy chair. "I see what you mean," he said neutrally. "That was either one hell of an aggressive infection, or your cleaning yesterday really aggravated something."

WHO FUCKING CARES? My mind screamed. But I had a bunch of other people's fingers in my mouth, so I could only go, "Yuh."

He explained to me that my left bottom wisdom tooth was partially emerged (which we all knew), and that he could either 1. slice away the creeping gum that kept occluding the tooth, which would almost certainly grow back; or 2. right then and there rip the fucking molar right out of my skull. "You could go back to work today if you felt up to it."

Gee, can I?

Well, one of two horrible things was going to happen this day. And one of those horrible things would probably just happen again later, for, you know, more horror. So . . . I told him to pull the fucking tooth.

We talked about the details. "You won't feel anything but pressure, like this." He pushed down on my shoulder. "We'll give you a local." Needles in my mouth! Just like I planned when I woke up! "That's it?" I said weakly. He looked at me for a moment. "We could also give you laughing gas. It's--" I cut him off. "I totally want gas." He looked at me again and gave a nearly invisible sigh. "You seem nervous," he said. I stared at him. It was like he had said, "You seem to have skin." Nervous? He wanted to remove bony structures from my mouth!

He read my face. "Jenny, can we get a gas hookup?"

Good old Jenny really got a lot of balls rolling then as we moved into Phase II of Operation: Ruin Skot's Week. She dollied in a tank of NO2, and then gave me a delightful swab of topical anaesthetic to gnaw on. Presently, Dr. J. returned to fit me with my NO2 nosepiece and waited for me to be acceptably peaceful about the needle he held in his hand. All at once it hit me, and my extremities became exceedingly tingly. "Can you box some of this up for me to take home?" I asked.

"Ha ha ha," he said mirthlessly, and then propped my jaw open with a big rubber chock block, and dove in. I dimly felt him stab me way down in the back of my jaw, and then the entire left side of my face slid away. He got some plier-looking implement and went to work. I studied the ceiling with a monkish intensity while he worked. The thing about laughing gas is not that it's a euphoric . . . it's more like a distancing drug. I knew what was going on, but really . . . there were more interesting things to think about. Like, for example, the fact that I felt like Kid Flash. (Again: seriously.) I thought, "I'm totally like Kid Flash right now!" (BZZZZZ! GRIND.) "I'm definitely Kid Flash."

Later, when the gas wore off, this was . . . well, humiliating. Kid Flash? Not only does it make no sense, but it's just stupid. I can't even fantasize about being the legitimate Flash? I have to be Kid Flash?

At some point, Dr. J. asked how I was doing. I reflected for a moment, or perhaps centuries. Dr. J. waited patiently. When no answer was forthcoming, he experimentally wiggled the damn tooth with his evil pliers. I clawed the base of my jaw frantically. I FELT THAT! "We can take care of that," said Dr. J. I felt him jab me way the fuck down in my mouth again, and now my neck was gone. "We sure have sedated the hell out of you," he muttered, and my whole Kid Flash thing was gone. Now I was Beast Boy or something. "Pain Lad! Who cannot tolerate pain!" Fortunately, the gas still acted as a deterrent towards caring.

When all was said and done, I was able to leave Dr. J.'s office under my own power, minus one tooth. I crawled into a cab and moaned, "Gemme da Bemon an Erger!" My jaw-hole was packed with gauze, but I guess cabbies have heard worse, and he drove me home. I deliriously overtipped him and wandered into my apartment; I then called the wife to report that I was home and needed SOUP, STAT! Then I passed out on the couch, presumably from the sedation, but I also figured my entire body was just fucking disgusted with me.

"What, he can't even get through this lousy day without some asshole drugging him and stealing some of our bones? Jesus Christ. Put him to sleep while we work on repairing this goddamn hole in his face."

And so I slept most of the day while my body fretted about the awful insult that it had received. I woke up only a couple times to 1. gingerly chew on some nicotine gum to relieve the smoke fits; 2. marvel at the incredible oozing grossness of my gauze pack ("It's like Elmo got run over by a tank!"); and 3. of course, fret about dry socket infections.

I bet Kid Flash never has to worry about this shit.