Tuesday, March 13th, 2001: Well I made it through my ordeal at the dentist, but it did have a price. Let me take you through the entire day, beginning from when I left home.

3PM... left home knowing I had to take care of a few things first

3:05PM... got to the convenience store to pick up a newspaper and a lottery ticket for a friend of my dad

3:15PM... stopped off at the bank to make a quick little withdrawl, only $20

3:20PM... made a pit stop at the gas station to blow that $20. I was sad because I only had the $20 for 5 minutes before it was gone

3:24PM... left the gas station and headed to the dentist office

3:32PM... entered the mall where the dentist office is located after parking the car and navigating my way around lakes of melting snow and rain in the parking lot

3:38PM... entered the dentist office and made my way to the front desk

3:40PM... after chatting with someone else, the clerk came and told me "it was about time I made a visit. We gave up hope you'd ever return". I was like, "oh man, don't even mention how you've attempted to get my dad and brother in for almost a year now", though I didn't say that outloud. What I did say was "I'm here! Were you able to find my file?". She said that they had too many files on record that they can't keep them going that far back so if I hadn't been in since 1999, chances are my records are gone. I was like, "ooookkkk?". So she had me fill out a form to create new records.
Once completing that, she told me I could wait and they'll be right with me shortly. So I sat in the waiting room, looking for something to read but hesitated when looking at the reading selection. It was my worst fear when I did pick up that issue of Toronto Life. The stupid thing was from July 1999...what the heck is that? Would it kill you to spend $20 and buy some new stuff?

Anyways, I read some article about how the public got stuck with the debt on SkyDome to the tune of $379 million. I wasn't pleased to say the least, but I read on.

The clerk that gave me the forms came back out and asked me if I wanted to have my teeth cleaned the same time, that is if someone cancels at the last minute. I thought about it and asked her if it meant that they'll clean my teeth AND replace that lost filling. When she said yes to that I agreed to do that. She went back inside and I went back to my 2 1/2 year old magazine.

The assistant opened the door and called out for someone named Mr. Dollard. I looked up but went back to reading. She went back inside. 5 minutes later she comes out and asks us all if anyone is waiting to see Dr. Talsky. Two of us said yes and she went back inside. I raised my eyebrow and thought to myself "has she been on the nitrous oxide or something?". She comes back 3 minutes later and calls for me, so I go in. As she leads me to the room she tells me that she thought the name written down was Dollard. I didn't say anything because I had no response for that blunder.

I sat in the room and the dentist came in because, according to him, he recognized me and just had to come to find out if it was really me. Yes folks, my dentist seems to know me like I was one of his long lost buddies.

We shook hands and he asked me how things were and if I'm still studying at University, you know, catching up like we had a planned reunion or something. Don't get me wrong, he's a very nice guy and all, just not something I expected.

So he checked me out and saw the spot where the filling use to be and told me to stay put as he had to have some x-rays taken first, so I waited, admiring the tall tree they have in the corner that seemed to be dying as there were massively bare spots in it. Next to it, a box of toys caught my eyes. I looked out the door as if I was going to get up to go inspect the box or something. What was I thinking?

I resisted the toys and sat in the chair like a good little boy.

The dentist came back and escorted me to the room where they'd take the x-rays.

I sat in the chair and just waited. A dental assistant came in and put that heavy lead apron thing on me and put those tab thingies in my mouth and had me make that stupid grin thing as she flicked the switch. Thinking nothing bad could come of that, she removed the tabs from my mouth and wouldn'tcha know it, the stupid tab thing stuck to my teeth and tore off inside my mouth. The quick thinking assistant tells me "oh, sometimes the tabs get stuck in people's mouths". Thank you very much for that bit of info lady!

I tried to dig it out using my tongue but when that wasn't working, I resorted to my finger. It came out. I was so relieved that I asked her if the paper was toxic or if I'd die if I swallowed it. She laughed, though I couldn't help thinking about that "will" I wrote out in my previous entry. I wondered if I was psychic and saw this potential life-ending thing today while there.

After digging the paper out, I walked back to the other room and sat back down in the chair.

I realized there was a piece of paper on my lip the whole time I walked back and though how stupid I must have looked. Yeah, go ahead and laugh at me!

The dental hygienist, Carol, came in to clean my teeth. That's when the horror started =(

Oh the agony and blood!

I was hoping Buffy would come and save me from the vampire that was working on my teeth!

She dug around like she was looking for the lost treasure of King Tut or something.

I tried to take my mind off of things by looking up at the fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. I noticed there were 3 dead flies inside the lense and so that got me to thinking...how did those flies get in there to die? I looked around at the other ceiling tiles and noticed one wasn't perfectly set right, leaving a tiny gap. So I then put two and two together and came to the conclusion that the flies must have flown through that gap, got lost in the darkness but saw the little holes of light at the top of the fluorescent lighting frame and crawled through and dying from either the heat or lack of food. I then realized I had become completely insane for even thinking about stuff like that. So it was back to pain...spitting blood...pain...spitting blood...you get the idea.

When that was over, I felt like having a party because the filling couldn't have been any worse than that.

Carol then showed me how to floss correctly, handed me a toothbrush and told me I could go to the desk to see the dentist. I went out there and he then asked me when can I come in next. I was shocked and said "huh? You're not filling my tooth now?". He looked at me and told me that I elected for the cleaning today instead of just the filling. I couldn't believe it. I wanted to go hunt down that clerk and asked her what she was smoking. I told him what she told me but that didn't do any good so I told the secretary to give me something tomorrow because I don't want to wait any longer. The dentist looked over his schedule and told me he'd squeeze me in tomorrow at 12:15PM, between patients. I don't know if he just said that to calm me down or not but whatever the reason, I accepted it.

I left there and came home and thought "what a fun way to spend my free time...2 days...2 trips to the dentist".

Why me?