I had my semi-yearly dentist appointment yesterday. Let me tell you - it was a blast.

Going to the dentist is like showing up for an exam you haven’t adequately studied for, except instead of getting the answers wrong, your mouth bleeds. And the test isn’t conducted with a pencil and paper, but with sharp, disinfected tools designed to induce pain and anguish.

The dentist’s office is what I imagine hell would look like if only Satan believed in antiseptics. My gums may have bled a bit when I was a kid but at least the dentist would give me a toy after we were through. Now my mouth still bleeds, but instead of a toy I get a toothbrush, a souveneir-sized tube of toothpaste, a small packet of dental floss and a scathing tongue lashing for exhibiting the early symptoms of Gingivitis.

When we go to see a doctor it’s usually because we are ill and want to feel better. The dentist is the only doctor you visit feeling well and leaving in a state of pain. It’s like if you went in for your yearly physical and the physician punched you in the face and smashed your groin with a metal bat. And made fun of your mother.

The dentist’s chair is a medieval torture device reincarnated. Instead of being physically strapped in, you are held down by an invisible sheath of fear, guilt and embarrassment. You lie there awkwardly while the sadistic pseudo-doctor pokes and prods you with his wide array of sharpened miniature scythes. You want very much to close your mouth but instead you squint your eyes. In a fleeting fit of faux sympathy, the devious dentist smarmily informs you that,

“You wouldn’t bleed so much if you just took better care of your teeth and gums.”

And you say,

“Perhaps I wouldn’t bleed so much if you weren’t dissecting my mouth with those shimmering silver scimitars, you torturous tyrant of teeth!”

But your mouth had just been sprayed by that omnipresent little water hose so it comes out as more of an extended gargle.