::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

View from the Bottom

Helpless on a Dentist's Chair

Shahnoor Wahid

Here is one as a starter:
A Judge before sitting on a dentist's chair made him swear by uttering the following words:

"I shall take out the tooth, the only tooth and nothing but the tooth."

The gloomiest morning for me turns out to be the one on the day when I have an appointment with my dentist in the afternoon. The hours pass by amazingly fast that day. I try to keep the thought out of my mind but it keeps coming back. Then suddenly it is already 3:30 and my appointment is at 4pm! Why no storm today? I wonder aloud. Even nature betrays me that day! Somehow I manage to collect some strength and step inside the dentist's chamber.

The moment I am ushered in, I turn blue all over no matter how beautiful the attendants are. My legs go numb and I feel lack of oxygen in my brain. And by the time I am made to lie down on the chair I go into a stupor, a trance; I feel I am floating in air; I hear voices coming from far away; I begin to giggle; I begin to guffaw.

The harsh voice of the dentist who happens to be a good friend of mine, brings me back to the real world. "Don't behave like a child! You are a grown up guy. It won't hurt at all. Open your mouth." Says the doctor. Yes, it is easy for him to say all that. He does not have to sit on that dreadful looking chair. I try to say something with my mouth shut but he already has his gloved fingers inside! I try to remember half the prayer that I memorised long ago. This is one time I badly need God to be around but HE has other things to do! If only Divinity had to go to a dentist!

Then I see the machine before me! A metallic predator with the conspicuous needle already in motion....swirrrllll.....jinnngggg....I watch the needle come stealthily towards my mouth. My upper lip has been folded outward and I can feel I am looking like a chimpanzee. Then the doctor pulls down my lower lip, and I can feel I am looking like an orang utan. Next, he forces both my lips backward exposing my full set of teeth. Now I feel I am looking like a skull that is not quite dead yet!

Then the drilling begins....chhhnnnnn. The heartless man goes deeper and deeper into my tooth while saying all the time that it won't hurt a bit! Crazy or something!

Then after many, many hours of sadistic drilling on my poor little tooth the doctor starts to stuff something into the hole. Why fill it up when you took all the time to create a hole? No answer. He goes on playing with my tooth for another one hour and then possibly gets tired of it. Finally he allows me to get up. I begin to look for my face! It isn't there! There is no feeling and I feel as if I have turned into the 'invisible man'! Only after looking into a mirror that I feel relieved. My face is there alright! I pay him the fees and hit the road before he finds something wrong with my other teeth.

Here is one for the road:
"Open wider," requested the dentist, as he began his examination of the patient. "Good God !" he said startled. "You've got the biggest cavity I've ever seen - the biggest cavity I've ever seen."

"OK Doc !" replied the patient. "I'm scared enough without you saying something like that twice."

"I didn't !" said the dentist. "That was the echo from the cavity."