Lack of wisdom

On Monday, I had a wisdom tooth pulled.

It's the first time I've had a wisdom tooth yanked. I don't know that I feel any particular loss of wisdom, but then again, as my life decisions have proven, I don't think I had very much wisdom to lose in the first place.


The appointment was set up through the Army; they hooked me up with a cool dentist on the upper East Side. After informing me that it would take about 15 minutes to rip my tooth out, I was given the option of being knocked out. An option I happily accepted.

It's a weird sensation. You're sitting in the chair, they stick you with a needle, someone says, "Just relax." Everything gets fuzzy and then a nurse is walking you down a hallway to a room where you sleep off the happy juice. And you're biting down on cotton gauze where your wisdom tooth used to be. Odd.

It's like being a private dick in a film noir where some dame just slipped you a mickey.

For me, I didn't really think about the terrible possibilities of all the horrific things that could happen to me while unconscious until it was far, far too late.

My serious lack of wisdom definitely kicked in right as I went under, causing me a slight flurry of panic just as I passed out. Suddenly, every horror movie I had ever seen, every urban legend I had ever heard, every whacked out tale of crazed, maniacal, sado-masochistic dentists flooded my brain.

You go in to get a tooth pulled and you wake up as a head in a jar, I think. This is how it happens!

I calm myself down. I know I'm being irrational. I'm just getting a tooth pulled. This dentist is totally chill and cool. No one is harvesting my organs.

The room goes blurry. "Just relax," he says, shoving cotton into my mouth, in a voice that sounds a million miles away.

Everything is going black.

Oh my God, I suddenly realize too late, slipping into dark oblivion. No one knows I'm here...!