Hilarious Dental Appointment: A Comedy of Mishaps

To protect privacy, names and identifying details have been changed. Hyperbole is used for narrative effects.

I walked into the dentist’s office, taking deep breaths to calm a racing heart. My hypersensitive molar needed a crown. How can pulverizing a tooth to a stump not hurt? The visit became surreal when my imagination ran wild. What if everything that could go wrong did?

As I slid into the chair, my head exploded into prayer.

Heidi, the dental technician, apologized for rescheduling my morning appointment to an afternoon one. “That’s okay,” I said. “I hoped for a cancellation, but I appreciated the stay of execution.”

Heidi chuckled, but she’d soon wish my appointment had been canceled.

Her long black ponytail swung forward as she leaned in to apply putty to my upper teeth for an impression. The putty smelled like a clay pot and tasted like cold bologna. The odor wafted up my nose, triggering a craving for mustard.

Dr. Jaykle, a highly respected dentist in the midpoint of his career, entered the room while reviewing my chart. Heidi handed him the mold. He glanced over at me, pulled down his glasses, and smiled, “I’m sorry for being late.”

“That’s okay. I hoped you would be,” I said.

Dr. Jaykle and Heidi laughed.

Then Dr. Jaykle picked up a syringe resembling a turkey baster. “We don’t like our patients to be uncomfortable,” he said as the gigantic needle found its drop zone. Heidi whacked my arm so I wouldn’t notice the harpoon stuck in my gums.

While the lidocaine worked its magic, Dr. Jaykle left. As we waited, I voiced concerns about my high saliva output.

“It’s a challenge to swallow when my mouth is filled with dental devices and human appendages. Drowning is a possibility.”

Heidi looked bewildered, so I elaborated, “Once I yawned in church, and before covering my mouth, I squirted the guy’s jacket in front of me. When I gasped in horror, I squirted the hymnal like a fire hose without a shut-off valve.”

Before Heidi could respond, Dr. Jaykle returned. He instructed me to tell him if I felt discomfort during the procedure. I said I’d raise my hand, but added, “I wore a red shirt in case blood spurts out.”

“Nancy, no blood is going to spurt out,” he assured me while attacking my molar with some kind of pickaxe. My hand shot up, almost yanking my arm out of its socket.

He gave me another dose of lidocaine. But as soon as he began grinding again, the pain zapped me like a cattle prod. I winced without raising my hand. Two doses should have left me a doped-up, drooling mess.

“Are you in pain?” he asked. “You’re supposed to tell me when you feel pain.”

“If you’re almost done, I’ll tolerate it.” Actually, I hoped to lose consciousness.

“I’ve just started, Nancy,” Dr. Jaykle told me. “A lot of filing has to be done to prepare your molar for a crown.” My brain heard, “Muahahaha!”

He questioned whether a crown would even be possible without first doing a root canal. “There’s a crack that spirals down the middle of your molar, does a pirouette, and jigsaws to the back of it.”

Hesitating, he asked if I wanted another shot of lidocaine, emphasizing he rarely had to give anyone three. Immediately, I replied, “Yes, shoot me up!”

With my head transformed into a potato, I thought Dr. Jaykle asked if I felt like a plant yet. So, I said, “Well, yeah, I’m easing into a vegetative state.”

While waiting, he examined the health of my gums with something as sharp as a stiletto blade. “I don’t see any blood,” Dr. Jaykle pointed out to Heidi. He jabbed me again and again, transitioning me into a living, breathing, hyperventilating voodoo doll.

“Nope, not one drop,” Heidi confirmed.

They didn’t see any blood because of my red shirt.

The dentist’s probing hands pushed my upper and lower jaws further apart. A Georgia peach could’ve fit in there. But he still insisted, “Open your mouth wider!”

Then the horror show began.

When he resumed the pulverization process, the bone-chilling cold had subsided enough for him to finish. Heidi removed the saliva vac, and Dr. Jaykle pulled out the stump grinder. My fears eased as I shut my super-sized mouth.

Next, he applied some resin cement to the temporary crown and pressed it onto the stump. Unfortunately, the resin squeezed out and hardened like craggy concrete on several of my teeth. To strip away the construction-like debris, he chiseled it, chipped it, sanded it, yanked it, and scraped it.

Then he gave a mighty pull and wrenched out the protective film stuck between the temporary crown and the adjoining molar. My eyes must have gotten as wide as saucers because he immediately assured me, “I’m not extracting your teeth!” Another yank removed the resin-encrusted temporary crown.

“Good grief, this cement REALLY loves your teeth,” Dr. Jaykle said. When I flinched, he stressed, “It’s only plastic, Nancy. That’s all it is.” Well, the plastic shards flew through the air like shrapnel. We needed hard hats.

“Something landed in my eye,” I said while reaching my hand toward my face. Like a hawk swooping down for prey, Heidi snatched my arm in midair. As Dr. Jaykle held my eye open, Heidi squirted a steady stream of eyewash into it to flush out a chunk of plastic concrete.

After cleaning the temporary crown, Dr. Jaykle pressed it back onto my stump. This time, the film separating the temporary crown and molar slid out perfectly. But the crown was a little long. He filed it multiple times and had me bite down on the articulating paper to check. It still required adjusting.

They were an hour and fifteen minutes behind schedule, and the technician left to prep the next patient. Before Dr Jaykle joined her, he called an assistant, “Rosa, see if you can make this tooth fit.”

Rosa scraped more of the dried resin off my teeth, my tongue, and my eyebrows. She didn’t have a fancy headlamp, so it took a while. Then she fine-tuned the temporary crown until it fit comfortably.

“You do pretty well without a light bulb in the center of your head,” I commented.

Rosa grinned as she walked me to the front desk. She scheduled an appointment to replace my temporary crown with a permanent porcelain one.

Before I left, Dr. Jaykle came over with my chart. He opened a folder, scribbled some notes, slapped it on the counter, and said, “This was the appointment from hell.”

I’m sorry, but I laughed with half of my face.

When I relaxed and got a grip on reality, the mishaps struck me as hilarious. Unless you’re Jesus, mistakes happen. People, products, and tools aren’t perfect, especially when treating a challenging patient like me. But not everything that could go wrong did. After all, I’m not dead.

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