I AM AFRAID...

of the DENTIST.  With those huge needles and various metal instruments they use to poke and prod in your mouth, who wouldn't be scared?  My Dad for one... He could sit in the chair and have a dentist remove his bicuspids with a sword (without anaesthetics) and he would just sit there smiling.  Then again, the man is from another time.  He is afraid of nothing, except my MOM of course.

Throughout my entire life, the dentist has been the bane of my existence.  The dentist is the guy that told me in the 6th grade... "You should see an orthodontist, you're going to need braces".  Well that's just great Doc, do I need braces for my legs as well?  Thank you for postponing my exploration of the female body for a few more years.  And I went to this... "Orthodontist" character and he slapped those braces on my face without blinking.  My life was over.   I had to have 4 teeth removed before the braces could even go on.  Great.  The next four years went by very slowly... with pieces of Doritos stuck in my metal mouth everyday.  So during that period, every time I went to the Dentist for a cleaning, I couldn't even look at him.  He did this to me.  It wasn't my parents genetics... it was the dentist that wanted my life to suck.

By my Sophomore year of high school, I still had those braces on.  I went back to the dentist for a final cleaning with braces... and then I had them taken off less than a month later at the Orthodontist.  Free at last, free at last, free at last!  I was ready to show off my new grill to the world, but there was a catch... they give you a little thing called a RETAINER.  You have to wear it for like two years after you have braces.  I lost it the first week.  And I also decided I wasn't going back to the dentist for the rest of my life.  

I went through a stretch of almost six years after that where I never went to the dentist.  I ducked and dodged my Mom every time she mentioned it or I would immediately change the subject.  Huge mistake.  Take care of your teeth.  When you show up at the dentist and he asks you, "Have you been chewing on glass for the last 5 years?"   This is a BAD sign.

I never went cause I was afraid.  My teeth never looked bad, nor was I in pain, so why go?  I was also embarrassed.  Nobody wants to admit that they've had 14 cavities in one visit to the devil... I mean dentist. 

Everybody wants perfect, shiny, white teeth in this Hollywood-influenced country.  You don't even have to go to the dentist anymore to whiten your teeth.  You can just throw some Crest Whitening Strips on those bad boys and call it a day.  Even though they work, you still need to have cleanings on the regular.  Perfect teeth aren't nearly as important as healthy teeth.

Recently, I moved to a new part of town and decided that I would no longer be afraid of the dentist.  I figured it was something I had to get over, now that I am an adult.  "Grow up" my mom said... "It's not that bad, stop being a wimp" my Dad added.  This coming from the guy that used to sit me in a chair in the kitchen and rip out my loose teeth with his calloused hands.

So I found a local dentist that received rave reviews on the web, and I figured, "what the hell?"  I walked in, looked him right in the eyes and said, "I AM SCARED OF YOU."  He laughed out loud.  We chatted for a bit and then I had a regular checkup with x-rays and the whole bit.  I just asked him to shoot me straight and he did just that.  I can't stand it when medical professionals bullshit me.  Don't beat around the bush, just let me have it.  I can take it.  He told me I needed work, but surprisingly very little work, since I hadn't been to the dentist in 50 years.  He made me feel so comfortable.  This guy was the MAN. 

I went back for 3 more visits.  The first was a cleaning and the other two were fixing some old fillings and having a crown placed on an old tired, filled tooth that was decaying.

So after all of these years... with braces, four regular teeth and four wisdom teeth extracted, two crowns and a boat load of fillings, I finally have good dental health.  And I had painless procedures to get here.  No root canals... knock on wood.  It was a good thing I brushed 12 times a day.  My teeth almost look like Ben Affleck's now... man that dude has great teeth.  It's taken many years to accomplish this, but I am no longer afraid of the DENTIST.