This is part two of my Dental Day post, you can find the first part here.

First, I have to clear something up. I made up that whole thing about Gary Coleman being my dentist. Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time - you know, the ideal cliff hanger: "What? His dentist is GARY COLEMAN?" Again, sorry. I'm not even sure if Gary Coleman has gone into dentistry, although I'm sure he would make a fine dentist.

My actual dentist took a look in my mouth and told me that I had broken a tooth. It was at that point that I handed him my Ziploc® baggie full of tooth parts. I don't know what I expected. "Hmm, I'll glue these together right away!" was probably not the response I was looking for, but I thought I would get some sort of Boy Scoutish credit for saving the pieces. Or maybe a discount. But none of that happened. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what happened to that baggie. I suppose, if this was a movie, we'd cut to a scene of my dentist typing up his eBay entry "L@@K! Blog Hero Tooth Parts - Mint in Baggie! No Reserve!"

After we all agreed that my tooth was gone and there was a giant smoking crater where it used to be, I was told that we would have to put a post in and then put a crown on the post. This is a dentist's way of saying "I thank you. My Mortgage thanks you. My Kid's College Fund thanks you."

Dentistry is one of the few fields where the professional involved gives you specific advice and asks you what you want to do, but you and the professional both know that you have no choice and you're going to do whatever he says. For example, when the dentist says, "Well, you have a hole in your mouth and the only solution is to put a post in and a crown on that" he doesn't expect you to say, "Hmmm. Well, let me take my toothless maw home and think about it." No, you're pretty much putty in the good dentist's hands at that point.

So I (believe it or not) decided to go ahead with the dentist's proposal. I got twelve shots of Novocain (three of these were actually in my mouth) and the dentist started working. Of course, I was an unplanned appointment, so they did some work, left for a little while, did some work, and so on. All told I was in the Chair for about three hours that day. It went rather well, except for the fact that I was conscious. Some things can't be fixed by a shot of Novocain, such as hearing the dentist say to the assistant (and I'm not making this up):

"Hand me the knife. No, the sharp one." Pause. "We're going to need a new blade for this."

That was when I almost lost all control over my bodily functions. But, I held it together and mumbled through chunks of gauze:

"What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?"