“Mr. Stallwood, please sit still.”
“Please stay calm, Mr. Stallwood.”
“Please keep your legs still Mr. Stallwood.”
“Are you in pain, Mr. Stallwood?”
“We’re nearly finished Mr. Stallwood.”
“Mr. Stallwood, almost finished now.”
“Not much longer to go now.”
The Grumpy Vegan will be once again in the dentist’s chair. I have British National Health Service teeth. Raised on a diet of white sliced bread and white sugar by loving parents who knew no better. I have a mouth full of fillings, which are being transformed, slowly but surely, into crowns.
“You need another crown, Mr. Stallwood.”
In fact, I need two, on Tuesday, December 12.
One crown I can barely tolerate. Two, I need drugs. Valium is being prescribed. A driver booked.
This will be my first trip to my dentist’s new offices.
“We have lots of new ways to make your visit less stressful,” he promises.
“You mean a cocktail bar with handsome waiters?”
“No.”
“But you can listen to music. Watch DVDs.”
The dilemma now becomes which music. DVDs are not an option. When I’m being violated I prefer to keep my eyes closed. I also don’t want to distract the dentist by what would almost certainly be a bizarre choice on my part.
So, I’m considering some Buddha Bar or Gianni Schicchi by Puccini but I may end up in tears when O Mio Babbino Caro plays. Then, there’s Massive Attack, which I think will go well with the valium.
Even before any of this happens, I’m anxious about the valium. I generally don’t take drugs of any kind. My addictions are coffee, alcohol and The Guardian quick crossword. I don’t sleep well and the few sleeping pills I’ve taken kept me awake. So, I’m concerned the valium will have the opposite effect of its intent. So much for animal research.
Anyway, all of this leads me to invite you to email me with your suggestions as to what to listen to for 90 minutes or so in the dentist’s chair under the influence of valium?
Please, no thrash or hip hop or country music.
You may wonder why the Grumpy Vegan hates going to the dentist. It’s the drilling. But it’s more than that. It’s what happens … or could happen when the madman drills to the center of the earth via my mouth.
Once, I was in the chair having a root canal. A thunderstorm raged outside. The room was windowless. You could hear the thunder but couldn’t see the lightning.
The power surged. The lights flickered.
“You remember,” the dentist reminisced with his assistant, “when we lost power completely? We had to send the patient home unfinished. She had to come back the next day.”
They’re oblivious to the hysterical panic crazed idiot in the chair not being entertained by the dentist’s good times.
“The tooth’s cracked,” he said.
“You’ll have to have it pulled.”
“Can’t you do it,” I dribbled. “You’re a dentist.”
“No.”
“I won’t charge you. My assistant will give you the address.”
In a scene reminiscent of the ring being tossed into the fire by a fat singing woman, I drove ahead of the storm to the tooth-pulling dentist.
“Don’t break my chair,” dentist number two said as I clung to my life and the Wagnerian thunderstorm came closer.
I couldn’t give a damn about his chair. Or his pathetic humor.
Just do what you’ve got to do. And get me out of here.
