I walked into the dentist’s office with my heart pounding so hard, I could hear it, and I was nervous the dentists would smell the fear on me, and either attack me with mandatory kindness, or devour me whole. These thoughts did not help to ease my worry. I took a seat in the waiting room wringing my hands together in utter panic, the word cavity ringing through my mind.

“Elisa,” my mother had said to me this morning, “Remember, you have a cavity that needs filling. Dentist appointment today! 2:30.” She laughed at the coincidence of my time of doom. “Hah!” she said. “2:30! Tooth-Hurty!” She laughed some more at her own joke.

Good one, mom.

I think she purposefully scheduled my appointment for that time.

I had gotten some cavities filled in the past, I was sure of it. But I didn’t remember anything of the procedure. By nature, cavities are supposed to hurt, right? The pain was popularized by the dancing tooth and toothbrush in those cartoons.

“Remember, kids! Brush those teeth, or you’ll get a cavity!”

Duhn, duhn, duhn! An evil blob would then enter, usually with a dark mustache and a sinister grin. At this point, the blob would attack the tooth and thrones of kids would hopefully learn their lessons.

I didn’t see why the dancing tooth couldn’t have just filed a restraining order on the offending blob and let the law deal with it.

I crossed my left leg over my right leg and began tapping my finger on the arm of the chair.

Pain.

Needles.

Evil Blobs with Mustaches.

I crossed my right leg over my left and reached for a month old issue of National Geographic. Not interesting. I reached for a two month old issue of ParentHood. Who reads these things?! To National Geographic readers, this news was old. To those who read ParentHood, shouldn’t they be with their kids?

I don’t know which is worse about going to the dentist: waiting, or somebody shoving their hand in your mouth?

“Rivera? Elisa Rivera?” A woman in a blue scrubs, much like my aunt’s (who is training to be a doctor) stood in the threshold with a clipboard, and began looking around the room. One day, when my aunt was taking me to a dentist appointment, she turned to me and said, “What’s the difference between doctors and dentists?”

“Uh, one works with teeth?” I said, confused and not realizing she was telling me a joke.

She smiled and said, “Doctors don’t think they’re dentists.”

I laughed all the way into the dentist’s office and didn’t stop until my dentist came and asked what was so funny.

“Uh… That’s me.” I said meekly, standing up to follow her.

She led me down a cool hall past the row of chairs and into a tiny room, one of the few with a heavy wooden door so other patients wouldn’t get scared by the wailing of the victims in there. My stomach flip-flopped as I sat down on the fake smelling chair.

“Okay, sweetie,” my dentist’s assistant said as she walked me to the chair, “We’re going to fill up that cavity in your tooth! All right?”

As if I had a choice. But I was too scared to be incorrigible, so I shakily nodded my head and lay down with a sigh, thinking that my dentist’s assistant sounded a little fake.

Have you ever noticed that dentist’s assistants do more work then the actual dentist? The assistants do all the tough work, and then at the end, the real dentist comes over, pokes around for a bit, and then tells the assistant what to do. Sounds pretty easy to be a top dentist.

The assistant asks me what flavor of “nose” I wanted. Having had bad experiences with the other flavors in the past, I chose the orange. She attached the citrus proboscis on my nose and hooked several tubes to it. At the end, I imagined I looked like I had tentacles protruding from my bulbous, orange nose. Freaky.

She turned on something that I couldn’t see, but knew was hooked up to me. “Shot of Novocain, deary?” she said with a smile.

Something that was sure to be witty rose up to my throat in preparation, but was stopped by a rather odd sensation that began in my nose, then headed to my mouth and tongue. This is it. Okay, bring on the pain!

“It’ll take a while for the gas to kick in.” My dentist’s assistant said.

A while?! How long was ‘a while’?! What was I going to do in the meantime?!

I waited for an emotion to overtake me: panic, fear, anger. But in their places was… nothing; a very fuzzy nothing.

I felt the numbness spread from my mouth and tongue to my head. The room started to spin. My chair started to spin. I started to spin. Everything was spinning in wobbly, uneven circles that tended to change direction a lot.

What was this, some kind of freak-out?

I looked to my dentist’s assistance to see if she, too, was spinning. She wasn’t. Instead, through my numb fog, I could see her at a computer, presumably selling her possessions on eBay.

This feeling… it was… it was kind of fun!

Instead of panicky, I was enjoying being tossed around while in the dentist’s chair. I was enjoying the fact that my head felt like it was stuffed with gauze. Maybe it was, but I couldn’t tell, nor did I care!

I was spinning recklessly around on my chair like a top, and smiling my head off. At least, I thought I was. I couldn’t actually feel my face.

Through my delirium I thought, this must be what it’s like to be high. Heck! Who needs all those illegal drugs when you can have laughing gas? I began to wonder if dentists snuck down here late at night and got high on this stuff.

My brain was gradually descending into the dementia that was Novocain and began displaying images of dancing teeth and evil blobs with mustaches doing the can-can, when I heard a mumbling from somewhere. It took me a full minute (or what felt like five) to realize that my dentist’s assistant had said something to me.

“Whathbf?” I mumbled, my tongue tripping on the word in its drunken state.

“How are you doing?” she repeated, probably smiling.

Well, I’m sitting in a tiny room with an almost-dentist surfing the net, while I’m hopped up on laughing gas. How else would I be?

“Ungh… Goothdh” It sounded like my tongue was in a sailors knot, but, at this point, I didn’t really care about anything.

“Looks like it’s going to rain.” My dentist’s assistant said, desperately trying to start a conversation. She must have been really bored to try and talk to someone hooked up to Novocain.

“Ungh Hungh.” I hoped she would stop talking to me so my tongue could rest. My last “sentence” didn’t even sound right to my ears. And they weren’t even working properly!

I closed my eyes and imagined myself body surfing down Niagara Falls with the Dancing Tooth and Mr. Cavity.

“Okay, little lady! Let’s patch up this cavity!” My dentist had materialized beside my chair. I must have been too preoccupied to notice.

I saw him take out his sharp-looking needle and point it at my mouth. I looked at the ceiling and waited for the pain while envisioning Mr. Cavity laughing darkly and rubbing his hands (which he suddenly acquired) together. Reading ParentHood had to be better than this!

I felt a prick on my gums. Then another. Then another.

“All righty, that’s it!! Make sure to keep flossing!” My dentist turned around and left his assistant to unplug me. Yep, he definitely had an easy job

Was that it? It took me more time to get high than it did for him to fill my cavity! The hell kind of world is this?!

The assistant unplugged the machine and the fuzziness began to clear. Wait! Just a little longer! I-I didn’t say goodbye to the Dancing Tooth or Mr. Cavity!

The assistant turned back to her computer. “All right, sweetie, off you go!”

I shakily stood up, then quickly grabbed the chair before I fell back.

One foot in front of the other, Elisa; keep going.

I stepped out into the waiting room, only a little high at that point.

“How’d it go?” my mother asked.

“Fine.” I replied.

It had been better than expected. There wasn’t any pain! That was a bonus. However, as my mind began to clear, I realized with horror that I had actually enjoyed being high on laughing gas!

Aw crap… Where’d my “good girl” mental state go?

Oh well, as long as the Dancing Tooth and Mr. Cavity don’t tell, no one will ever have to know.

A/N: And yet I go ahead and tell all my viewers. Way to go. I’m sorry Mr. Cavity and Dancing Tooth. I have failed you.

p.s. If you’d like to read another story about a dentist trip gone wrong, read victimofwritersblock ‘s story called Doom at the Dentist. That one inspired me to write this!

Please R&R!!