take Your Son to Work Day

Current mood: tired
Category: Life

I am laying on my back - a needle was placed deep into my lower interior lip. Under the glare of a light placed close to the gash of open flesh, making accessible though my oral cavity exposing it to a woman I just met clothed in plastic and rubber masked in white. She is both intently and nonchalantly pulling, hooking, stabbing and shaping my dental appendages.




The smell of smoke, bits of bone, slivers of flesh dabbed so carefully on a white towel - and humming - she pulled a tool and my half numb face feels a thump - a metal tool arches back and then snaps with a bit of a click. Microscopic chips fly.


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..How many kids do you have Kenneth?..


..None..


- ..tsk...Thats good! I have five...


Five??!!

I eyed her from the chair - the Dr is about 5 feet tall and is probably 30 at the most. It turned out she had the same thyroid condition I had - it kept her thin until they cured it. She has that comforting Philippina accent and had that informal maternal manner.


The insurance would cover two thirds of the cost for the major work I needed. - Did I want to parse out the work over a few days? - Nope do as much as you can in one shot.

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..spit..


My numbed out face turns and the drool/water mixture falls out of my face more to gravity then any force I can put on it.


Six shots of Novocaine can do that to you.


Out of the corner of my eye is .... a kid.


A boy not yet six - he has a look of someone trying to assimilate what was happening. a slight but insistent and alarmed inflection in his voice


..Mommy - what are you doing to that Man?!..


Out of the corner of her mouth she makes a ..tsk.. sound under the drilling - she stops and says reflexively ..HHHOONNNNNNN..


This only increases the alarm with the boy


..Mommmey.... WHAT are you doing to that MAN!..


In a flash an adult version of the boy is towering above him an in less then an instant he is scooped out and taken away


The Dr goes back to her work, muttering something about not being able to find a babysitter that night.
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I walk out making my next Dental appointment with the assistant holding a baby on her lap and a single hand on a keyboard.


I wonder what that did to her son? Probably nothing - but still...................