I’m getting my wisdom teeth extracted tomorrow and I’m FREAKING OUT MAN. I’ve never been one to be nervous about going to the dentist. When I got braces in the 6th grade, I looked forward to my monthly visits where I got to choose the color combinations of the rubber bands that corralled my teeth together. Orange and black for Halloween. Red and yellow for Lunar New Year. Neon green and hot pink for the summertime. I actually got eight teeth out in preparation for that, but at the time I was bursting with a sense of immortality that I don’t have these days. I shouldn’t have waited until I got to this age, when getting up comes with a groan and I have a wider vocabulary to describe my morbid concerns. But all my life people have told me about these true legends that dwell in my mouth, these ticking time bombs that, unless pulled out, will be certain harbingers of unfathomable and unending pain in my latter years. So the appointment is set – tomorrow, my mouth gets gentrified.
The dentist insists that I go under, which is the main thing that gives me unease. The idea of a chemical coursing through my body, climbing my spine and altering my brain to the point where I won’t mind someone slicing my gums apart and breaking my teeth to bits before excavating them from my face, gives me the shudders. I’d rather know what the fuck is going on. I’d rather be keen on every sound and stroke, aware that this odd but universal natural phenomena is being so brazenly addressed by the glory of human science. I’m probably saying this now, but hopefully tomorrow will recognize that the risk of going under and never waking up again was worth it.
The cost quote makes me wonder if I should just spend the money to fly to Southeast Asia and get it done there. I could probably get the roundtrip flight, week of hotels, daily banquets, and a Harvard-educated surgeon for a fraction of the cost. I think about the places I’ve been in this world and if wisdom teeth are a problem everywhere, if they’ve been so for all time. How is my mouth still teeming with teeth, despite me removing almost dozen of them already? Did we smile wider before? Did we just accept that, as we got older, our grins would resemble picket fences in swamps, crayons hurriedly stuffed in boxes, groupies gushing in the front row at Summer Jam? Or did we just spend the first humanic eons greeting each other by peeling our lips open, revealing with jaws aching our arsenal of yellowing ivory pillars – not fit for avatars and headshots but still ideal for cracking open sunflower seeds, tearing thread, and chewing the toughest of fibers from the latest hunt? Do we still find happiness like we used to, even with our modern smiles?