I want my tooth pulled. Well, that's not exactly correct. I want whatever is left of my tooth pulled, specifically the roots and whatever else is making it hard to sleep.
A cap fell out during a radio show I hosted in the winter of 2003. I was chewing gum and it decided it had enough and wanted to leave. It left and never came back. To hell with it, I thought, I never really wanted you. I left the tooth unattended until the next winter when I had a root canal. I didn't cap the root canal. The insurance didn't cover it. I had another root canal the next summer. I didn't cap the root canal. The insurance didn't cover it. I have done nothing to the tooth for the past three years. I have done quite a bit because of the tooth.
Large amounts of liquor seems to help. A dentist told me that I'm in pain when new roots are exposed. The alcohol helps numb and kill the nerve. I'll usually do a shot of whiskey and have a few beers. Recently I've been drinking rum. It ain't too shabby. My dilemma is when to start drinking. The hole in my mouth throbs from sunrise to sunset. The desire to self-medicate shares the same schedule. Yet I can't start drinking until most people get off work. Never mind that I don't have a normal nine to five and could start drinking at 9am without it affecting my job performance. That's not the point. The point, I think, is that if I don't drink until the evening, I'm not really an alcoholic. I'm just a masochist that's in denial about a love of hard liquor.
It will cost about $200 to get my roots pulled. Since there's nothing left of the tooth, there's no chance a bridge can be built or the tooth rebuilt. I'm a lost cause. Well, I'm a cheaper cause. Dentists over the years have given me quotes in the thousands. They wanted to rebuild my tooth or build a bridge. No dentist thought either would last for more than five years. Why spend so much on a temporary fix? I could just drink the pain away. Looking back, I've made the wrong decision. I've spent thousands filling this hole with booze.
Maybe this hole has scared me away from alcohol. I associate shots of whiskey with stabbing pains. Therefore, I do not take shots of whiskey without stabbing pains. Hence, doing shots to mask pain prevents me from doing shots for pleasure. Sound logic if I say so myself.
The UIC Dental School opens at 7am. Exams begin at 8am. Actual dental work begins at 9am. This is the place where I will get my roots pulled. The problem is that I've been drinking every night. I've been passing out around 3am. If I wake up at 6am and head over to the dental school I'll still be drunk. I'm pretty sure any competent dentist would not operate on a drunk. I need a dentist that throws competence to the wind. In fact, I need to find a dentist bar and gamble my way into some drunken surgery. This way, even if the procedure is botched, I'll be too drunk to care and I'll be able to sleep in.
I've known about the dental school for years. I've put off any procedure for years. Not so much out of fear of pain, but fear of getting work done, seeing the bill and going to debtors prison. Sure, that doesn't exist in the US anymore, but it's always been in my mind. I don't buy it unless I can afford it, unless it's education. I don't own a car, have a mortgage, pay credit card bills or bills for a wedding ring. I can't afford a wedding ring and I definitely can't afford a child. So I don't get my tooth fixed.
If you have good teeth you probably have decent money. If you have good teeth you have a loving partner that also has good teeth. Sooner or later one of those partners will want a ring. A ring to show everyone that yes, they are taken and yes, that person also has good teeth. While we're at it, now that we have these nice rings, we might as well have a condo with a mortgage and buy furniture that isn't quite good looking but very functional and was paid on credit car bills. We picked out the furniture on a trip to the far west suburbs in our nice sedan. You know what, why don't we move out to the suburbs in a nice subdivision? It's so quiet and nice out in the suburbs.
I am not ready to get my tooth fixed. I'm not against having a good set of chompers, a wife, a house and domesticity, I just don't know where to start and I'd rather start it right then end up in a sedan cycle.
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