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Draplin Design Co., North America
July 14, 2011
Tooth Time: Extracted!
Posted at 09:26 PM

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CHOMPING DOWN ON GAUZE: My morning was pretty weird. Tooth extraction day. Had to face it head first, er, tooth first. Take this hot tooth out! I did my best to be courageous.

I filled out my paperwork, and was in the big seat in no time. The assistant asked me some basic questions and got me all prepped up. The doc came in, applied a little topical numbing agent to the gums and then injected me with that sweet, prickly Novocaine. He juiced me up real good. The pinch of that needle really woke me up. Not fun. But I did it, and did my best to be stoic. Not so down with needles in my gums, you know?

So the doc leaves to let me “numb up” and this gives me some time to ponder just what the fuck is going to happen when they come back into the room.

That bad tooth is coming out, in minutes. So weird. Kinda scary. No turning back now!

The doc came in, did a little probing with what looked like a Philips screwdriver? Then he did some prying, and then horked that goddamn tooth right out of my mouth. Didn’t feel any pain. Just pressure. Weird pressure. Foreign pressure.

Like, the kind of pressure that doesn’t belong in yer mouth, or on a tooth, or on yer jaw.

I remember this much from that big moment: There was tile on the ceiling. The off-white kind with the little cracks and nicks. I found one little crevice and focused on that thing the whole time, my mind lifting out of my big medicine ball head and right up into that fissure on that tile. And that’s where I focused while the rest of me was anticipating what felt like a a “jaw removal” or something.

And then the tooth came out. Just like that. Just like everyone told me it would.

Very, very surreal. Cosmic thoughts flooded my halfwit head…visions of evolutional happenstance…dinosaur teeth ancestry…the sadness of losing a little piece of me…the brainbuzz relief felt to have that dead little cuspid out of me. A weird couple of moments.

So I’ve got some gauze going, some pain meds a mellow antibiotic just to kill any infection that might’ve been lurking in that hellhole of a tooth socket. Big fun.



There Are 7 Comments

hope you dont get anymore awful zappy feelings! and ive had my share of strange dental moments too (one of my front teeth are capped bc of a childhood accident during a brownies field trip to see a christmas story)…

Posted by: hahna on 07/14/11 at 11:32 PM

I can Relate man. Tooth inspiration and all. I did this a while back when I was faced with the prospect of medical bills and treatment for the tooth.

Posted by: Jacques on 07/15/11 at 5:16 AM

Man, when I saw the colors and shape of that tooth picture, the first thing that popped into my head was this: http://teaandbooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/amadeus-movie-2.jpg

Posted by: drew kora on 07/15/11 at 8:50 AM

So are they going to swap it out with a fancy Swiss toof? I had a filling go south and the good doctor gave me a fine swiss cap for the price of a fucking Rolex. I doesn’t even tell time!

Posted by: Skegger on 07/15/11 at 11:37 AM

This post made me get up off my chair and floss.

Posted by: karen on 07/18/11 at 10:11 AM

I recited digits of Pi in my head while my wisdom teeth were being extracted. I like to think I hold the unofficial world record in that category.

Posted by: Raybot on 07/24/11 at 1:42 PM

I am a dentist that loves your graphic design work but I really loved your take on getting your tooth extracted. Hope you have recovered from this by now.

Posted by: dwatsondds on 07/26/11 at 11:51 AM
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