Horror (or at least Hyperbole!)

Do you remember those early trips to the dentist as a child, when you were never sure if you were going to make it out alive? Andrew captures these moments well in his humorous memoir. I love how he builds in elements of the horror genre to write about the dentist. It's a perfect extended hyperbole. (P. S. Sorry I can't figure out how to make blogger indent the paragraphs. Weird, huh?)

Imagine being forced into a small colorless room where a man approaches you with a long needle, a large pair of pliers, and you have nowhere to run or hide. This is my story.
It all began on a beautiful sunny day as my Mom drove me through our little town that I knew so well. It was grocery day, the day my brother and I loaded into our SUV with its hot, sticky, leather seats. The sun scorched our car and us like toast in an oven as we headed towards Wegman’s grocery store to stock up on food for the upcoming week. This day seemed strangely different from the rest of the times we had gone grocery shopping; I could just feel something was wrong. It wasn’t until our car pulled up to the large white building with a giant ceramic tooth out front that I realized I was at none other than a child- killing dentist’s office!

I stared at my Mom with my big round blue eyes and begged her not to make me enter that wretched building, but it was no use. After several minutes, which seemed like hours of lecturing from her about how nice the dentist was, I was physically dragged and forced into the all white dungeon. I made my way into a cold room that contained what looked like to me like torture tools hanging on the cold, lifeless walls. I was then directed to a bed-like chair by a pretty woman with an evil smile on her face and breath that smelled like baloney and putrid cheese. She told me to lie down on the stiff, cot-like chair that felt as if I was lying on a rock. I had no doubt she too was in on the plot to kill me, along with my Mom and the dentist. Then a large light beamed down at me from just above my head. My frail, squinting eyes made me feel as if I was a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Just when I was sure things couldn’t get any worse, I heard footsteps moving towards me. I saw a tall figure in a white coat approach me holding a needle the size of my arm, and as skinny and sharp as a point on a barbed wire fence. Then he leaned over and stuck the long pointy needle deep inside of my mouth as excruciating pain shot all around my jaw and face. Then all of a sudden, the pain stopped and my mouth felt numb. Just when I thought the guy wasn’t going to actually slaughter me, he took a weird looking pair of pliers and jammed them into my mouth. I could taste hand sanitizer on his powerful, small fingers. Next I heard a pop as I gazed at the tooth that shot out of my mouth along with the dentist’s cold strong hands and a pair of blood soaked metal pliers from my numb and all together petrified mouth. I stared the tooth down for a moment, just to let it know that it was the reason for all the ruckus and pain today. It did not care; it just stared back up at me with its white lifeless eye. Then the colorless tall white figure finally spoke, and said, “All right, you’re good to go.”

“That’s it? but I thought you were going to kill me!” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what all the kids think, but I’m really not that bad of a guy. I just happen to have the job most hated by children,” said the dentist.

“You know what, you are a good guy and dentist, that wasn’t that bad. I will tell the rest of the kids at school too”, I said.

“Thanks kid, have a good one, and I’ll see you at your next checkup” said the dentist with a smile.

“All right. Bye and thank you,” I exclaimed. And as I left the office and drove home I felt bad that I had said all those crummy things about the dentist. He ended up being okay after all.

This experience made my dentist visits a lot less scary and even slightly enjoyable at times. This routine visit to the dentist also taught me not to judge a book by its cover. In my particular case, the so-called killer dentist ended up being a really cool, nice guy. After the entire dentist experience, I look back upon it today and realize it wasn’t all that bad. When the day was done at the dentist’s office, I ended up with a free toothbrush and milkshakes for the rest of the week to help sooth my sore mouth. Not a bad trade.