When I was a kid, twelve, I think, I went to the dentist once, and a checkup revealed that I had a cavity in one of my back teeth. My mother made an appointment for me to come back in to have it drilled, and a filling put in.
I already hated going to the dentist. There's nothing worse that having a guy who mistakenly thinks they are "good with kids," go to work on your teeth with a drill.
First off, most people don't really listen to children. Hell, if they're in the medical profession, they don't often listen to adults. I suppose that's understandable, but that's not the same as it being okay. I hated this guy anyway. He always acted like he was on television - it was like having William Shatner for a dentist. He'd wander out of the room for fifteen minutes while your mouth was loaded with cotton, right in the middle of drilling. He'd talk on the phone while doing stuff in your mouth. He'd ask you questions and then make fun of how you sounded because he had his hands in there.
But my favorite... my favorite part, was that he'd say "If it hurts to much to continue, just raise your left hand, and we'll stop for a second." And then he'd ignore you or come up with reasons not to stop.
Also... he kept calling me "Sport," and "Chief," and "Little Buddy." This is not a way to win points with me.
So... I go in, and the first warning sign that this will not be a good visit is that the televisions on in the office - this is a children's dentist, and they had TV's up that would show cartoons while they worked on you, to distract you from that silly root canal - are not showing cartoons today. No. They're showing a baseball game.
He asks me "Hey, how about a little baseball today while we work?"
"No thank you," I say, "I don't really like sports." This is an understatement. Frankly, at this point in my life... and up until today really, sports of all kinds make me think of something my Sicilian grandmother would say: "Se tutti esplodono en una mattina," which means "They should all explode in one morning."
"Don't be silly," he says, "All little boys like sports!"
"Actually, I have no interest in sports," I tell him, "I really don't like watching them or playing them at all."
"Well, chief," he says, "This isn't just any sport. This is baseball!"
Now... this whole time, he has not looked me in the face a single time - worrisome, since I think he needs to look at my face if he's going to stick a drill in my mouth. He's staring, unblinking at the TV, while trying to get me ready for the dental work. There are several dental assistants around, but all but one of them are also staring at the television, carrying on about the game. Loudly.
So... the guy shoots me up with some Novocaine. Before we even begin, I explain that I hope he's using one of the newer Novocaine-like anesthetics, because Novocaine stopped working on me years before. And this is true. I hate when I have to use stuff like that, because it works on me maybe once or twice, and then never works again. You could shoot me up with so much Novocaine that it squirts out my ears, and it doesn't do a goddamn thing to me.
He responds "Don't be silly. You can't be resistant to Novocaine."
I can see this is going to be a fun visit.
So, of course, he sticks this needle the size of a harpoon in my gums and starts wriggling it around. but he's still glancing over his shoulder at the game while he's doing it. Twice, the needle scrapes on something hard - under my gums - probably bone. With a needle in your gums, it's hard to say anything without risking further injury, so I'm raising my left hand, and when he finally notices (because I'm shaking it in front of his face, obstructing his view of the television), he stops and says "It can't be hurting yet, this shot is to make it not hurt!"
Idiot.
So, I'm telling him "Novocaine takes like fifteen minutes to start working, and that's when you're not immune to it! And you're digging all around in there. Can you stop watching the TV when you have a needle in my mouth at least?"
His response? "Now, now, sport. I'm the dentist. I think I know what I'm doing."
There is, and was, by the way, no quicker way to earn my utter hatred and loathing than to call me "Chief," "Sport," or "Little Buddy." I've long ago given up on trying to politely ask this guy to quit that. I think he even called my mom "Sport" once. It was like he had Tourette's - except that most people with Tourette's aren't retarded.
So... anyway... after a bit, my mouth is feeling very not-numb. Maybe a little tingly. So, I insist that the stuff's not working. I finally manage to flag over a dental assistant, who goes and gets my mom. My mother comes in and verifies that yes, indeed, I'm immune to Novocaine. She then announces that if it's going to be a while, she's just going to go do some shopping, and can she leave me here?
Great. As soon as he gets rid of the rest of the witnesses, then he can finish me off and dispose of my corpse in time for halftime, or whatever the fuck baseball has.
So... he has the assistant bring over some Xylocaine or something, which I've only used once at this point, and which he had the whole damn time, and he repeats the process of preventing me from having pain by scraping a giant needle around inside my gums and squirting burning fluid into them. At least this time, it makes my gums a little numb. Almost so numb that it's hard to feel where the needles went in.
So... anyway, he gets started on my tooth. And he's drilling, and drilling, and drilling. I'm beginning to wonder if he's hoping to find Uranium in there, or if he's forgotten I'm just in for a filling, and he's giving me a root canal instead. Needless to say, this shit hurts like crazy already, and he keeps glancing over his shoulder, while he's working, to see the goddamn baseball game.
Finally, at one point, when he glances at the game, I guess the guy has either hit the ball, or missed the ball, or something else of vital importance to this asshat's betting pool, because... and I am not making this up... he makes that "punching" motion that guys make when they are pumped up about something. Except that he does this with the hand that is in my mouth, drilling on my tooth, and this causes him to drill a hole into my cheek.
So, I grab his arm, and yank his hand out of my mouth, and begin spitting blood everywhere. The guy has the nerve to tell me to hold still, because "You don't want to be wiggling around while a dentist's got a drill in your mouth, sport! Ha ha!"
Motherfucker.
So... I explain to him that he has drilled a hole where no filling need go... my cheek, and he looks and discovers that, surprise! I seem to be correct! "Sorry about that, chief," he says... "We'll just be more careful, huh?"
At this point, I'm wishing that I had a baseball bat. So I tell him that if he watches the game while drilling on me, I'm going to tell my mother that he drilled a hole in my cheek while watching television. I also explain that I once watched my mother hit a man so hard that he flew into the air and landed on the top of his head, with his jaw broken in seven places. This is absolutely true, by the way. Also, this guy has met my mother, and is aware that she is... shall we say... somewhat unreasonable when aroused to anger - which can happen at any moment.
So... he starts in again, this time promising to be more careful, and with the television off. He still keeps calling to an assistant in the next area to tell him what the score is.
By this time, he's been drilling for quite a while, and gods know whether he's even doing it right, or what he's drilled besides my cheek. For all I know, he's not even working on the right tooth. The anesthetic was barely working to begin with, and now I have a hole in my cheek that hurts like fuck. Now... I just want this over with as soon as possible, so I'm trying to just let him finish. But finally, it just hurts too much, so I raise my left hand to let him know I want a break.
Needless to say, he doesn't stop. So I raise it higher, and wave it a little. Now... I'm trying to do this without moving anything but my arm, because there's a jackass with a drill stuck in my tooth. He does not stop. So I wave more frantically, and carefully make a "MMRRRGNNGH!" noise.
He says "Oh, it doesn't hurt that much."
So I wave my hand a lot more, and say, "ffRgh! MMMFLRggh! GGRRRNF!" which if translated would mean something like "The heck it doesn't, get that drill out of my mouth!" Unfortunately, it's hard to talk through a drill and a pound of cotton.
He says, "How about I just work on you a little longer? It can't possibly hurt, with all the anesthetic I gave you."
I repeat the waving, and frantic eye widening, and mrgle mrgle mrph noises. I am now approaching panic, because this hurts like civil war era medicine. And he says, and I am not making this up, "Aww... if it really hurt that much, you could do a better job of convincing me than that."
I lost it. I bunched up my right fist into a wad with the approximate density of a neutron star, carefully angled my body, and caught him under the chin with an uppercut so perfect that his jaws clicked together, he bashed his head on the worklight over the dental chair, and the drill went flying out of my mouth. Did you know that dentist's drills actually turn themselves off immediately if the dentist loses control of their fingers? It's good to know.
It actually dazed him enough that he fell over backwards. I started ripping that stupid dentist bib off, and hauled back my fist again, and shouted into his face, "Did that hurt? How about I stop when I'm good and ready! How about I work on you a little longer! Huh?!?" I'm spitting bloody cotton in all directions by this point.
Now... keep in mind... I'm a short, nerdy, quiet fat kid who cries easily. And I've just taught this six-foot tall grown man what "glass jaw" means. I'm wondering if he figured that if the twelve-year-old hits that hard, that he wouldn't want to get socked by his mom. Maybe he's worried about getting on the news at this point. he actually called his partner in, and had him finish doing the filling.
The other guy did a good job. He confided in me that he didn't even like baseball.
So... my mom finally returns. I'm still pissed off, and my face hurts. The first guy complains that I wasn't "a very good patient," and that I "won't be getting a lollipop," that time.
Really. I am not making this up. I muttered something about "Lollipops... good policy. You give those out so I'll get cavities and have to come back so you can finish me off, right?"
I explained the incident to my mother, and she did threaten to snatch the guy bald-headed. But then she smacked me for "Not behaving."
Man... I swear... to this day, if I see that so-called dentist, he's gonna need a dentist.