That'll have to come out...

Off to the dentists’ today because my teeth hurt, and also, as I discovered to my intense embarrassment when filling in the registration form, that I haven’t had them checked for about nineteen years.

Nineteen.

If you’d asked me in the pub when I’d last had a check up I’d have said “Oh, a few years back, you know.”

Nineteen years.

I didn’t know where to put myself.

They operate in packs now dentists. There were about five of them hovering around the treatment room, each poised and ready to do their bit. No idea who they were as the only person who said anything apart from myself was the actual dentist. She occasionally barked instructions at one of them but other than that they might have been performance artists down on their luck.

At least the dentist didn’t have bad breath like one I saw in Ireland. That’s a three in the morning memory.

Looks like an extraction is called for. Perhaps they’ll spring into action then.

I mentioned the fact that I was off to see the dentist to a friend and mentioned also that I thought it might be something to do with my wisdom teeth. I received an apocalyptic warning about those many years ago from another dentist, you know the kind of warning that appears in flashback with doomy music on the soundtrack. This friend then told me about another friend who had had her wisdom teeth out and how I’d better demand a general anaesthetic.

You don’t get this with other illnesses. You tell someone you’re off to the doctors’ with a cough most people don’t start chatting about tuberculosis wards or wasting diseases that their aunt had. If someone tells me their a bit worried about their eldest going off to university I don’t counter with “Yeah, I knew a lad who did that. Tried to kill himself. Still stammers.”