{"id":99,"date":"2003-11-08T11:38:57","date_gmt":"2003-11-08T19:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/?p=99"},"modified":"2003-11-08T11:38:57","modified_gmt":"2003-11-08T19:38:57","slug":"nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2003\/11\/08\/nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the visit to my dentist, Dr. P, before Pian NO NO NOOO. <\/a>The molar first has to be ground and shaped to accept the crown.<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acWould you like gas and Novocaine?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acGas and Novocaine? What, are you joking? Some people want both?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acDon\u00c3\u00adt judge, I have many patients who need the relaxing effect of gas. It depends on how traumatized they were in the past\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acOh, come on, I grew up with reusable needles that resembled harpoons and drills that rotated as fast as my food mixer, and I wouldn\u00c3\u00adt ask for both. Novocain is plenty.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acBut some do need both and that\u00c3\u00ads why I offer it. And there are some that use nothing.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acNothing, what do you mean nothing.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acNothing means nothing.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acWait a minute. You get in there with your drill like a construction worker jackhammering pavement, without Novocaine?<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acThat\u00c3\u00ads right, they don\u00c3\u00adt want their lips numb afterwards. I guess it\u00c3\u00ads their tradeoff.\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

I realized I had grabbed a swinging vine and was touching both shores, but I continued.<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acAnd how did they ever get to the point where they knew they could tolerate it? I mean, you start chipping away and then they scream? Or not?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acI couldn\u00c3\u00adt do it, but that\u00c3\u00ads what I mean about judging others. You should avoid it.”<\/p>\n

Dr P then raised his needle, grabbed my cheek with his thumb and forefinger and did that pulling, shaking, distracting thing while jabbing and filling my gum with Novocain, after which, he left the room. Gotta give Novocaine time to take effect. I put my glasses back on and flipped through the latest People Magazine. I get pop cultured in both the dentists\u00c3\u00ad chair and when Chris drops off her latest Vanity Fair. <\/p>\n

He was gone about five minutes and when he returned I probed with my tongue and detected some sensation near my soon to be hacked off molar, but I kept quiet. I didn\u00c3\u00adt want to be jabbed again, I too hate that numbing, drooling sensation and besides, he always over does it with the pain killer.<\/p>\n

Amy lowered my chair and as I stared into the three dimensional Alice in Wonderland artwork above, Dr P went to work with his drill. The enamel began to fly and that awful burning smell filled my nostrils which is okay, but what wasn\u00c3\u00adt so okay, is that I could feel everything. I kept thinking, This can\u00c3\u00adt be, it\u00c3\u00ads my imagination. <\/i><\/p>\n

I must have grimaced because Dr. P asked,<\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acAre you doing okay?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

I nodded my head. <\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00acAre you sure?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

I nodded again.<\/p>\n

This office could be a federally designated Pain Free Zone. I always feel better after the visit than before, but not this time. I felt every chip, not just flying off my tooth, but as it ricocheted against my pink cheeks. When he used the air gun to dry the stump, I had Frankensteinian images of directed lightning bolts, but the worst was the rope that he stuffs into the gums around the stump that confines the mold for the temporary crown. I saw Anthony Bates plunging his hunting knife in again and again.<\/p>\n

You might wonder why I didn\u00c3\u00adt complain. I would reply, how could I? I had made fun of the gas and Novocaine wimps, and in a backwards, only a guy, could twist a conversation this way, Dr. P had implied I was a sissy for using anything. And, I kept believing, given all the Novocainehe injected, that I was making it up.<\/p>\n

Finally, mercifully it was all over and Amy was raising my chair. Dr P had picked up on my discomfort because he looked at me and said, \u00c3\u00acYou felt it, didn\u00c3\u00adt you?\u00c3\u00ae<\/p>\n

I nodded. <\/p>\n

\u00c3\u00abGuess what? You now know what I meant by nothing.<\/p>\n

\"gift_sm.gif\"
Stolen from Steven’s New Yorker
\nView larger image<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the visit to my dentist, Dr. P, before Pian NO NO NOOO. The molar first has to be ground and shaped to accept the crown. \u00c3\u00acWould you like gas and Novocaine?\u00c3\u00ae \u00c3\u00acGas and Novocaine? What, are you joking? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}