This post is from January 11th.

The other day I went to the dentist. The receptionist gave me a form to sign. It was for a filling.
I said, “What am I getting filled?”
She looked it up on my chart and showed me.
“Oh.” I said.

In hindsight, I should have said, “This seems unnecessary. The chips you are filling in have been there for as long as I can remember, and they’ve never bothered me.”
But all I said was “Oh.”

Dentists are renowned for having torturous looking instruments, but I never really feared my dentist until that day.
“I’m going to file down the edges a little bit first,” she told me. Her instrument said something closer to, “I’m going to puncture your skull and drain your brains out through the roof of your mouth.”

I’m not kidding. It was the most terrifying piece of equipment I’ve ever had the misfortune of putting near my face. It looked like a spike from a morning star. That spun at high velocities.
The thing was probably only about 4 centimeters long, which is piddly-sauce compared to the 4 inches the Novocain needle has, except something about the sharp taper made it seem more like to be found in a medieval torture chamber than a medical office.

Oh, and she didn’t end there. After the Spike of Doom, and after much cementing and scraping and UV-light blasting, there was some more S.O.D., and then the polisher, which I can only assume was a miniature version of something normally used to grind peoples’ faces off.

“How does everything feel?” She asked, “Any rough edges anywhere?” She held the Grinder poised and ready.
“Fine.” I said, hurriedly.

(To be true, it’s still a bit rough on the back side, but I’m not going to tell her that.)