Laughing Stock
This Is Going To Hurt Just a Little Bit
The first time I visited a dentist was 6 months ago, when I experienced increasing pain in my right-upper wisdom tooth. It had been there since my teenage but hadn’t troubled me so far. When I could no longer take it, I decided to have it looked at.
The first dentist I saw, looked at it for less than two seconds and prescribed an extraction. He called it an open and shut case, possibly in an attempt at humour. “Of course you’d like that. This is what pays your bills, not some prescription medicines”, I thought. Promising that I’d schedule an appointment soon, I left his office and began looking for another.
This time, however, I asked for recommendation and that’s how I ended up in Doctor Avantika’s office. Unlike the first one, she took a good look of the tooth, tapped it to check for pain spots and even took an X-ray; the full rigmarole. I was disappointed when she too advised an immediate extraction but was far too impressed with her thoroughness to question her judgement. I scheduled an appointment for the next day and even showed up when the time came.
She put me in the chair, explained the procedure again and administered some Nitrous Oxide, aka Laughing Gas. This is when my life changed. You see, I had never felt so happy in my life before. Stuck in a sales job, I was following up with clients who would not buy and if they did, wouldn’t pay up easily. Inside the office, I was always chasing my manager for signature on some or the other document, who, as a matter of principal, never signed anything without at least three reminders spread over a week. All this while I had to keep an eye out to separate the delivery team’s word from wordplay and had to constantly look over my shoulder because some of my colleagues could sell their firstborn to advance their careers. After all this, if I reached home before bed time, I had to contend with the studied avoidance of a teenager and an endless chatter of nonsense of an adult. My body would tighten up as soon as I woke up and remained that way until bedtime. Sleep was always short and fitful.
So, when I went under the spell of the gas, I could feel my entire self relax as my jaw unclenched, the creases on my forehead eased up, my grip opened up, my back slouched, each muscle in my body loosened and a rush of joy invaded my mind in which I could hear the wall clock and a hundred other sounds and yet, could also hear silence. I could count the passing of each second and yet, was living an hour in each tick. This, while the good doctor was removing an entirely useless bone from right under my brain. Imagine if I could experience this when there was actual silence outside! Back in my youth, I had experimented with “stuff”, but have never experienced anything even close, not even in my most carefree days.
Slowly but surely, the high wore down. Its craving, however, increased, as my mind kept revisiting those blissful few hours. I was no longer chasing clients, sending reminders to my managers or second guessing my colleagues. At home too, I functioned at minimum capacity; dressing, cleaning up, eating and sleeping as I carried a singular thought in my mind and a distant gaze in my eyes. Despite knowing the answer, I googled if I could obtain the gas from anywhere but google can only add to your knowledge, it cannot alter reality. There was no way to be even near the laughing gas unless you are getting a dental procedure done. I could explore extra legal ways too but I am too timid to even jump a signal in the middle of the night, let alone purchase a psychedelic from the black market.
Unless you are getting a dental procedure done. “This is how I got it the first time”, I thought, “This will help me get it now”. Soon, I said goodbye to my lower right wisdom tooth. And then the Upper-left one. And then to my last piece of wisdom.
I was hoping that with the four of them, I’d have had my fill and I’d be able to let go of my obsession too, but unfortunately, it only grew. Now the stakes were high. The wisdom teeth are called vestigial for a reason but all the other teeth have a role to play and no doctor will take them out without a good reason. I had none and so had to create it. I went through a few options in my head and settled on the one which afforded me the highest degree of control, notwithstanding other aspects. I figured that for a vegetarian like me, canines probably had little value. So, I took a plier and loosened it a bit; enough that it does not heal itself but not enough for it to go down without a fight. The doctor looked shocked but accepted it as an accident and operated on me. She grew suspicious when the accident repeated itself. She operated on that as well but asked me not to visit again.
I realised that I’d have to keep finding new dentists and specifically call upon those who use Nitrous Oxide and not any alternative anaesthetic. I kept adding finer details to the methods along the way and the plan worked beautifully 32 times. But I am out of ideas now and I am writing to ask if you have any ideas for me?
As a bonus, enjoy this poem from Ogden Nash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACrKPzIaI_s
