Hello dear readers. I hope you’re all doing well and that the Internet’s Best Blog finds you happy. One of my two New Year’s Resolutions was to blog more often; as you can see, I’ve not done so well with that one. If it’s any consolation, I’ve not done so well with the other resolution either, which was to use all of my vacation days at work instead of letting them go to waste again. (NO, I do not get them “bought out” at the end of the year.) I should have taken Martin Luther King day off last week, but didn’t plan far enough in advance. I guess it’s not that big a deal, but it would have been nice to sleep in. Anyway, hopefully this is the last time I have to apologize for the delay in dropping in on my corner of the world wide web.

I don’t know how things are going for you, but so far 2007 has been a bust. So much for high hopes. A week into the new year, the very same tooth I had a root canal on in good ole ‘06 began throbbing. As the whole point of a root canal is to abate throbbing pain, or any other sensation, it didn’t take me long to decide that this was an unfortunate turn of events. So off to Dr. Fine I went.

After he fiddled with the tooth (which shall henceforth be known as Bain) and took a quick picture of it, he decided he couldn’t determine what’s wrong with it because, as it turns out, there is a wisdom tooth blocking the camera’s view. “If we want to figure out what’s really going on,” he says, “you should go to an oral surgeon. That’s the gold standard determination.” I don’t know much about teeth, but whenever the words “surgeon” and “gold standard” are mentioned in the same sentence, I don know it ain’t gonna be cheap. However, given the choice between debt and pain, I guess I’ll choose debt. At least there is a possible remedy for the debt; like George Bush’s bungled war, the pain could go on forever.

My dentist recommended a surgeon, and off I went. Apparently being an oral surgeon is good business, because that was one busy office. It was so busy, in fact, that I waited ninety minutes past my scheduled appointment to be seen. Finally a woman who looked like a science experiment gone horribly wrong escorted me to a room and took a panoramic X-ray of my mouth, which I have to admit was pretty cool. I was then shown to the waiting room in the back of the office. To get there, one has to walk by three operating rooms, which appeared to be the training grounds for future soldiers at Guantanamo. Each room had a patient in a chair, lying back, mouth agape, eyes staring straight ahead as if to say, “I’m not here, I’m not in pain,” while two pairs of hands darted in and out of their mouths, holding sharp bloodied tools.

“Self,” I thought, “this is not good.” When Dr. Klein introduced himself, I was a bit taken aback by dollops of blood splattered across his chest, but I bucked up and put on my best game face. Klein smiled as if to say “they didn’t feel a thing” and proceeded to tell me that there was one of three things wrong with Bain; A) Nothing, B) It’s fractured, or C) It’s infected. Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to take out the wisdom tooth next to it, and while the gum is cut open take a look and see what’s going on.

“If it’s fractured, we’ll pull it, if it’s infected, we’ll clean it and if nothing is wrong, we’ll close it up and send you home. If it’s B or C, it will be a little painful and/or costly.” For all you dentists out there, I recommend when relaying bad news to your patient, you do so with a modicum of grace.

“So,” I say, “I guess while we’re taking out the one wisdom tooth blocking the bad tooth, we should consider taking out any other wisdom teeth, right?”

“Well,” Klein sighed, “we can take out the other top one no problem, but the one on the bottom… that one has a nerve wrapped around it. I’ve never said this to anyone, but never, never have that tooth pulled. Unless you can be unconscious for a week after. Ha ha.” In my mind, an oral surgeon telling you to leave a tooth alone is like a waiter being honest with you about the fish of the day; you should listen. So I agreed to leave that tooth alone.

That still leaves the two wisdom teeth on top that have to be ripped out, and as Klein was explaining the procedure to me and the various options available to Bain, I couldn’t help but see dollar signs floating above my head and then popping like little bubbles right in front of me.

“Ok, so two wisdom teeth will cost about how much,” I ask.

“$400 each, plus another $400 if you want to be put under by the anesthesiologist.”
”If? Book him.”

“Ok, now for the other tooth, well it depends on what we find. If it’s fractured we’ll pull it and that’s about $400. If it’s infected, we’ll clean it out and that’s a little pricey, about $1500.”

Once again, in the span of two hours, I went from being a hair’s breath away from a debt free existence to another six or seven months of working two jobs.

Dear 2007: I am not impressed.

“So, call your dentist and then we’ll talk,” Klein said, “but either way, go ahead and schedule the extractions.” The science experiment and I scheduled the appointment for February 2nd and I went on my way.

My conversation with my dentist was very brief, but it is time like these that I’m happy to be from the South. See, in the South everyone knows you attract more flies with honey. Some situations call for absolute sweetness; New Yorkers in general aren’t capable of sweetness. So I dug down to my roots, called my dentist and played the nice guy. Pay attention meanies, you’re about to learn something.

Start off with a little flattery.

“Gee Dr. F, I don’t know what to do. I would really appreciate your advice, because I know you and trust you. Should I go through with this?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

Then suck up a little.

“Well, you know, I mean I’m sure you think it’s best, but we don’t even know what we’re going to find when he’s in there. When all is said and done, this could cost $2500… before I commit to that, I would really appreciate it if you could assure me that this is the best way to proceed. If you say it is, then I guess I will go ahead and do it.”

“Yes, I think you should do it,” he says.

And now, ever so delicately, drop the bomb

“But gosh, it’s so expensive. I mean, geez, I really am shocked at the cost because when you filed this tooth down after I said not to, you said you would cover the cost of fixing it if something went wrong, but this is a significant expense, and I wouldn’t want either of us to have to absorb it.”

Silence.

“Let me call you back,” he says.

Five minutes later, Dr. F called and said he felt horrible about all of this and that if I could cover the costs of extracting the wisdom teeth, he would cover the costs associated with saving Bain.

And now, the coup de grace; play humble.

“Oh my god, Dr. F. I can’t ask that of you.”

“No, I insist.”

“Thank you. Really, thank you.”

I figure, all in all this will cost me about $1200 for the wisdom teeth, which is a little easier to swallow. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the alternative. However, consider yourselves warned dear readers, you will hear all about my wisdom teeth extraction. Experience dictates it will not be fun.

In other news, my dvr is not working properly again. Now it freezes whenever I watch The Colbert Report. (Maybe my dvr is Republican.) I haven’t had the strength to call Time Warner yet. And get your Nan and rice out, because it appears that Curry-Fest 2007 has begun. Last night the smell was so bitter it woke me up out of a dead sleep at 4:00am. Who cooks curry at 4:00am you ask? Cab drivers.

And finally, I learned a valuable lesson today and I thought I would share. See how giving I am? MSNBC had an article about how some scientists discovered that if you microwave your sponges for two minutes, it kills 99% of the bacteria living on them. “Great!” I thought, “I’m going to go home and sanitize my sponges.” Hey, we take our excitement where we can get it.

What they failed to mention, and for some reason what I didn’t even consider, was that the scientists were not talking about the sponges with the scrubby green side. The results were less than spectacular, although there were fireworks. I assure you, I’m not this dumb normally. In fact, I’m very bright, which is a good thing, because it took some quick thinking to toss the carousel of flaming sponges into the sink. It’s now three hours later and my eyes are still stinging from the acrid smell of burning scrub brush.

Moral of the story: for the sake of your olfactory senses, please just buy new sponges. Be well.