Dental Disaster

Do you know how many times CNN has ran the same story about AIG and the bailout bonuses in the past 48 hours? I do. I was awake, clutching my remote and a tube of Orajel in one hand, and my ibuprofen in the other as I paced my living room floor, back and forth, constantly changing between the same 4 channels and praying the same prayer for relief.

I’ve had this cracked tooth for over 4 years. Over time, it’s chipped away to almost nothing. And, sometime in January, it finally started to cause me some discomfort. Well, sometime on Tuesday, what was once discomfort and a throbbing, dull pain became a sharp spike of torture. It was like a group of leprechauns decided to commemorate St. Patrick’s Day by doing the River Dance in the nerve bed of my left jaw wearing golf cleats. I originally told my wife that it was like someone had rented a backhoe and was digging away at my face.

Anyways, I went into the dentist yesterday afternoon, laid down $120 bucks, and they didn’t do anything but point out the obvious. “Your tooth is a wreck. It’s all gone.” No, really? How long did you go to dentistry school? “Well, Mr. Short, we can do a root canal and cap that off for ya, it’ll only be around $900 bucks. But, we’ll be able to save your tooth.”

Are you kidding me? I came in your office today looking like the Mascot of Walmart on purpose. It was to demonstrate that I’m not your typical, run of the mill, Lexus driving, yuppie, soccer mom client with a disposable income and a dental card. I’m poor. I’m skipping my car payment to get you just to point out the obvious fact that over 2/3 of my tooth is missing! Give me a frickin’ break.

Needless to say, I paid that jerk-wad to tell me something that a 4 year old could plainly see. And, he referred me to a decent man who extracted my tooth this morning for the median cost of $400. Awesome. I’m feeling awesome now. I can’t pay my car payment, electricity bill, Dish, or phone/internet. But, I can stop the endless cycle of Larry King live and the O’Reilly Factor that I’ve been stuck on for the past week. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never trade my newly found oral comfort for $500. But I think things are going to get real interesting when the bills come due in the next week.

Alrighty then, I’m going to go take a Lortab and finally go to sleep… and sleep the whole night through. I’m not trying to turn my blog into a telethon, but I’d appreciate your prayers. Thanks.