Next time, bring $376.60, a Valium and maybe ear buds

For these dental visits I am trying to pay attention, ask thoughtful questions and consider what the dentist is suggesting. But I get so distracted. "Would I like to have the top teeth done in one visit or two?"  The thought as I hear this? "Coffee, tea, one visit or two?" So, Doctor was probably saying something that was important, yet my mind is buzzing around like a horsefly. For those that are wondering, "Done" is code for "removed".

The plan is this: my top teeth are being removed as there really isn't anything to work with he says. I beg to differ; there is about $2,000 worth of work done there about eight years ago. I will be fitted with an upper denture and eventually, money forthcoming, this will be retrofitted to a mini-implant appliance. The advantage is that there will be no plate like a conventional denture has. What holds conventional dentures in place is spit and suction. This brings a whole other light to denture cream commercials that I used to see when I sat with Grandma enduring the Lawrence Welk show. Those awful old people chomping on apples; no wonder I would hear Grandma hoot at them. Spit and suction. Here I go buzzing around like a horse fly again.

Doctor hands me a mirror as he points out various things. As it turns out, I have a pronounced overbite. When I speak, my teeth really don't come completely together. I am sitting there looking in a mirror as Doctor has me count to ten and points out all of this as I speak. I am concentrating trying to remember what comes after "eight" as he tries to educate me about this. "Well, actually Bob", he intones, "in your case this is a good thing"--bless his head, he really is looking for my cup to be half full--"we can remove the back teeth and then apply wax blocks to allow for vertical placement of..." I have no idea what he is saying. I went into horsefly mode after I heard that there was "good news" and took a dive when he went into the "vertical" portion of the program because I once learned and taught the way to remember the difference between vertical and horizontal is that whores do their job horizontally.  Whores and horizontal, get it? Yeah, it distracts everybody after they learn the difference that way. But you always remember it which is sometimes useful.

I am to eat two Valiums the night before, to "help me sleep". And then to eat two that morning. Bring an iPod (don't own one, can this be used as a medical expense for tax purposes, I wonder?) in case the sounds of drills bothers me. Do you want to hear the nuts and bolts of how the molars are going to be removed? Neither did I. Bzzzzz, bzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz.