Dr. Vlad, DdS.

Going to the dentist sucks.

I know, I know, this is a gross understatement unless you are one of those who enjoy people sticking their hairy forearms into their mouth and poking and prodding until a you bleed.  Those people – who are not right in the head, FYI – aside, going to the dentist is an experience that I have once in a blue moon that always leaves me promising myself that I’ll go more often if only to avoid the pain of going rarely.

I just got my teeth cleaned.  This was not one of those “we’ll clean your teeth with the little spinny thing and the tooth polish that tastes like finely ground chalk and send you packing with a shiny smile and a new toothbrush that is too small for your adult mouth.”  Nope, this was something of a more sinister nature.  This was a visit to the dentist by someone who had not had insurance for well over a year.

Now, I go to a dentist in Hazel Dell.  Not known necessarily for the quality of its people, Hazel Dell is a part of Vancouver that I have lamented before as being somewhat ghetto. Luckily for me, people in the ghetto don’t go to the dentist, so upon parking an entering the lobby I was blissfully aware that there was no one asking me for change, or a cigarette, or my firstborn, or any of the things people seem to never have.  I was, however, confronted by a receptionist that could easily come out of a Brahm Stoker novel.  This woman had eyes the color of thousand year old ice; the kind of translucent blueish-white that leaves a person wondering if there was not maybe a wolf somewhere in her lineage.  Thesecrystalline orbs were coupled with hair as black as the midnight sun and a flowing black dress of lace and lots of little ribbony things that seemed to serve no purpose other than to increase the overall volume of her clothing, creating an overall image of someone who could verypossibly just have feasted on the flesh of a newborn innocent.

But to be fair, she was really nice and booked me (thats what the call it at the dentist, right?) and had me sit down to read a book about Porches – a kids book about 2 feet long by one wide and printed on cardboard – while I waited for my appointment with Dr. Vlad.

Dr. Vlad happened to be a very pretty and extremely nice woman who called my name in a sing-song voice and led me through the hallways of the office.  On my journey to the chair of ill-repute I passed rooms where people were having drills inserted into their mouth, high-frequency radiation blasted through their skull, glaring ultraviolet lights shined in their mouths and a closed door that uttered forth the muted, echoing screams of a small child.  This was, obviously, going to be a trip from which I had little chance of returning.

Settling into my chair, I was given some cool shades and a neat little bib that smelled slightly of disinfectant.  Then I was regaled with stories of the Hygienist home life – about which I deeply cared, believe me – while I was shown an ever more depressing assortment of tools.  Hooks, pikes, scrapers… I think I even saw a reciprocating saw in there somewhere.  These were the tools of a professional.

The first thing that happened to me was the offer of anesthetic.  No thanks, I said.  I don’t really have a problem with needles – the several tattoos and scarred holes in my head where piercings used to be attest to that – but I DO have a problem with needles in my gums.  I’ll tough this one out.  I was then treated to a procedure the likes of which I had never seen, heard or imagined.

I got my gums cleaned with an ultrasonic pick.  This is a hooked poker that vibrates at 30 kilohertz – thats thirty thousand times a second – and sprays a fine mist of water into your mouth.  One might ask “What’s the water for?” and that would be a good question; it’s the same one I asked.  The answer was that the water rinses away any detritous that may accumulate around the bit and prevents “scoring.”  For those of you not in the know, ‘prevents scoring’ means that it keeps the bit and your tooth cool so that it doesn’t burn the shit out of your gums and leave little wiggly black scorches all over the bases of your teeth.

May as well use some Sterno to burn clean the teeth.

Not only was this somewhat unnerving, the sound that a rapidly vibrating piece of metal makes in your head when it comes into contact with teeth that are firmly cemented in your jaw cannot be described.  Suffice to say that it is really loud and couldn’t be replicated by the most excited teenage girl in existence, after she was told that she was not only getting a date with whatever the dude from Twilight’s name is AND her own car AND a million dollars AND well, you get the point.

Up next on the list of terrors du-jour was a simple scraping.  This is how it was described to me; “A simple scraping.”  No big deal.  Ill just take this bendy, curby piece of metal that looks like it was designed by NASA to drill holes in rocks on some foreign planet and scrape the crap out of the sides of your teeth/gums/face.  This was kind of fulfilling as I could feel it making a difference in the cleanness of mychompers, but totally freaky when the occasional chunk of bloody meat came out of my mouth perched precariously on the tip of that shiny device of inflicted pain.

There aren’t enough “Sorry ’bout that’s” to make up for the act of forcibly removing a piece of someones gums.  Especially when the lady is so tired she keeps saying she wants to just nod off.  I’m just saying…

Speaking of that, why is it that when you are at the dentist and someone has the equivalent of the creepiest home-depot hardware section ever in your mouth they insist on trying to have a conversation?  “Ungh, arriagh unghau urrur eerunughurr” is not an accurate answer to the question “What is work like for you these days.”  Plus, the far away sounds of drills, unhappy children and murmured conversations that are almost entirely vowels – and the much closer sound of a suction tube – make poor background for civilized discourse.

All of a sudden it was over.  The shades removed, the bib and its strange amalgamation of water, blood and another whitish substance whose origins I refuse to consider taken away, the obligatory “How ya feeling [after I just devastated the never endings in roughly 80% of your mouth with sharp-edged tools]?” answered with “much cleaner, thank you.”

I was led to the desk of a dour faced woman whose jowls only got deeper when she was informed that I had not the money in hand to pay may bill and that I had been misinformed as the the terms of my repayment.  After being accosted by glares and pitiless looks that would have made even the strongest-willed individual feel slightly less than beetle dung I left, bolting out the door and past the Receptionist from the Black Lagoon (or Arcturus, I’m not really sure which), around the giant book about cars I will never be able to afford and into the cloudy, rainy day.

Now don’t get me wrong, My teeth feel great and I intend on keeping them this way.  The people did a really good job and were actually pretty nice about the whole thing, but I will never be able to go to the dentistwithout first envisioning a trip to any dungeon in 14th century France, Iron Maiden, Rack, Ultrasonic Pick and all.