Ah, the endodontist. Sounds like a believer in an early-Christian heresy, but in fact what an endodontist is, is a dentist who specializes in torture. The kind of torture that rooted out early-Christian heresies, actually. (No pun intended because I suspect a direct historical connection.)
So, referred to this sadist by my usual Dom, my dentist, on the off chance I have a broken tooth, I first fill out a ream of forms the gist of which guaranteed my life and the lives of my wife and cat if I were not to pay in full immediately when Bruno comes by with some guys to collect. Then, I sign away all privacy rights -- I mean, I had the right to refusal. I mean, it's still a free country and all. They would even let me borrow a cracked mirror and a rusty pair of pliers if I chose to go out back by the dumpster and do it myself.
Lacking the courageous self-sacrifice of Our Warriors (peace be upon the martyrs; we thank them for their service), I choose to sign away all my data to the highest bidder they can find while also promising to upload mandatory recordings of future lovemaking sessions to their corporate intranet. I am impressed with how thorough a medical record they require.
The chipper receptionist says, "Thank you so much! Right this way!"
The cheeriness is as foreboding as an oncoming thunderstorm on the summer prairie. I am led into the room and onto the chair. The head- and armrests sport pink disposable paper covers that match the awful MarthaStewardian art and a plastic flowering plant. I am shown a set of new earbuds in case I want to listen to music. I'm also told with little explanation that the glasses next to them, the kind welders wear, are for me to put on "if necessary."
At this point, my anxiety is through the roof: all this pinkery can only betoken one thing: pain. In this I will not be disappointed.
In walks the endodontist. He wears Woody Allen glasses that he'll later startle me with when he, without warning, takes them off by grabbing the hinges and separating them at the bridge. Some endodontic necessity, I presume, but I do double-check to see if I'd had any gas.
But that's as I leave. I'm now in the chair, with a nice, comfy, pink pillow under my neck. He begins, like any artist, with a bit of a tease: he takes a tempered steel dart whose point has been honed to a sharpness best represented at the subatomic level and rams it as hard as he can in between my gum and tooth.
"Does that hurt?"
It's hard to answer as I gag on my own blood, but I manage to croak out, "Yes, a bit." He's mildly surprised.
Next, I am told to hold onto an electrical prod while he rams it into my teeth to see if the nerves are still alive. If you can imagine one of those deep-sea fish-monsters -- you know, the ones that are all fanged jaw plus some glowing electrical stalk sticking out of its forehead? Well, imagine a miniature one of those with rabies chewing its way through my pulp, and that's about how it felt.
"Don't let go of that," he tells me.
"Wonderful," I think. "I am grounding myself, apparently. This is how they break you: they make you an accomplice." I consider throwing the prod across the room and screaming, "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!" But I resist. Plus, what happens if I take my hand off the prod? I could ricochet around the small room like an atom in a computer animation of the ideal gas law.
After quintuple-checking to see if, indeed, the amount of pain I was feeling from the rabid fish-monster was indicative of a healthy nerve, my endodontist, whose name is Dr Josef Mengele, then moves on to the tooth-pounding portion of the procedure.
He has me open my mouth as far as I can while he stands next to me, digging in the carpet with his leading foot like a baseball hitter, aiming a sledgehammer at my back left molar. I note with the surreal attention to detail sheer terror provides that he chokes up too much on the handle.
"We just want to get a sense of whether any of this hurts."
I just nod as I am sobbing too violently to voice a response.
He puts the merest wisp of slightly cushioned gauze on my tooth, rears back, and takes a Ruthian swing.
After I come to about an hour later, I tell him that it actually didn't hurt as much as I imagine it would have had I a broken tooth. He agrees, but with a slight note of sadness.
"I guess we won't do a root canal today, then. I'll have to refer you to a periodontist to see if this is gum-related." He perks up. "Of course, if they send you back here, we'll be able to do that root canal."
I agree that such a prospect of abject joy rarely comes to a mere mortal, and I am careful to clean most of the blood off my hand before I shake his.
Ms. Sparkle-Happy comes to help me to the door. In response to my concern, she replies, "It's a stain-free carpet; special-made for us. Human blood actually cleans it." I gurgle, "What an age we live in!" which comes out, "Whugghahaygewelihin." She neither understands nor cares; she continues: "Oh, and the best thing is, this was a free consult! No charge!"
I thank her vociferously while making a mental note to return and blow up the building at my earliest convenience, but my plans are still inchoate when the word finally penetrates: "periodontist!"
What horrors can this new dental subspecialty portend? Endo- sounded, and turned out to be, shockingly internal. Peri-? A more all-around-the-mouth torture session? Will I be stacked in piles with other patients as the periodontists and their various Igors do their worst -- and record it with cute, little thumbs-up selfies? I know I've already signed away any rights to any images taken of me, by intent or accident, in the prosecution of my case, which I'm at first surprised to learn is actually covered by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force of September 14, 2001.
Alas, Dear Reader, I shall find out soon enough what untold horrors periodontics has to offer. And, please, I'm begging you: if you run into one of these -dontists, for God's sake, don't tell them I talked to you, OK?
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