"I thrill when I drill a bicuspid. It's swell though they tell me I'm maladjusted."
- The sadistic dentist from "Little Shop of Horrors"
It's April, a month most of us begin as fools.
A couple of months ago, I felt like a fool when the right side of my jaw began to hurt while I was in torts class. "Interesting," I thought. Stress headaches usually hit between my eyes.
After a long day, however, I knew it was a toothache. But not just any toothache - it was a wisdom tooth-ache.
At 30 years old, about ten years after most people have had their wisdoms pulled, my right top wisdom tooth decided to rear its ugly head. My friends recoiled in horror as my face contorted during my efforts to get my tongue back there to see what was going on.
"Jeez, Gen, school's not that bad," someone laughed.
But it wasn't a laughing matter to me. I was teething at 30.
When I got home, Derek jokingly offered to buy me a teething ring. After one minute of actually considering it, I scowled at him and told him to bite his tongue.
Now, if we were in Hawaii when this happened, I would call my gentle dentist, Dr. Randall Honda, and make a quick appointment. I'd sit in his office, space out on the map of the world hanging on the wall, and in no time, it would be over and done with.
Instead of the 808 state, however, we're in 619 San Diego. Do they even have dentists in 619 San Diego, I pondered stupidly.
How was I going to find another dentist as nice as Dr. Honda? I was sure the next guy was going to be just like Steve Martin's character in "Little Shop of Horrors."
But the pain wasn't going away on its own so I used the American Dental Association website and found Dr. Timothy Thomas, who had a friendly enough face - as friendly as a dentist can look. I also appreciated the photo of him and his family on his website because, in my mind, anyone who had a family had to be a little more empathetic.
Desperate times sometimes call for desperate logic.
Luckily for me and my throbbing molar, Dr. Thomas and his very competent assistant Linda fit me into his schedule. As I sat in the chair in the strange office, I enjoyed the soft jazz playing over the system. I also faced a window, from which I could spy on the hustle and bustle below. It was just as good as Dr. Honda's map.
That is, until Dr. Thomas told me that it would probably be best to remove the tooth.
"T-t-take it out?" I stammered.
He assured me he could do it right then and there (right then and there!) and that it should not be too bad since the tooth had space to move.
I didn't know what he meant, but whatever thought I had about bolting for the door was quickly quashed by the familiar pain. "Yes," I nodded. "Take it out!"
Dr. Thomas is a smart guy. Anticipating a clientele full of chickens like me, he invested in pain-free anesthetic delivery, a.k.a. The Wand, which is basically Novocain made simple. Within about half an hour, there was no discomfort. I asked Dr. Thomas where I could get a Wand to use during final exams.
As Dr. Thomas began to extract the tooth, I flashed again on Steve Martin's sadistic grin as he tortured Bill Murray, so it surprised me when, within a few minutes, he said we were done.
I couldn't believe it! No blood, no immense pain.
(And thanks to Dr. Thomas, I still have that wisdom tooth, which was sterilized and put into a nice little box so that I could horrify my husband.)
As he sent me on my merry and one-tooth-less way, he wrote out a prescription for Vicodin and recommended I take one immediately and then follow it up with another four or five hours later.
The real pain came when I went to fill my prescription at Longs.
As I stepped up to the counter with half of my face still numb, I mumbled a hello and said that I had some kind of insurance. The clerk looked at me with suspicion. I looked down at what I was wearing: jeans, a T-shirt and a worn all-weather jacket that needed a wash. I looked back at her and tried to remember what insurance I had.
"Do you have an insurance card?" she snapped.
"No. My husband didn't gimme one. But I hava group numburr," I slurred.
"A group number doesn't do anything for me. I need a card. What kind of insurance do you have?"
"Well, lessee…Kaiser. Yesh. We have the Kaiser."
"Kaiser? You need to go there then. We can't do it for you here." She eyed me with disgust.
And then it hit me that she thought I was a homeless person. It made sense. I had a backpack, a dirty worn jacket, jeans and an out-of-it expression. Add a slur to that and you get a stereotypical homeless person.
"Look. I doh cayuh. Juss tel' me how much it be without insurance," I mumbled in the most serious voice possible, given the circumstance.
She looked it up on the computer and turned to me. "Four-teen ninety-five," she said, enunciating each syllable.
Yup, that cinched it. She didn't think I could pay and assumed that I was some homeless narc off the street, jonesing for my pills. "Juss fill it den! I kin pay."
After paying the $14.95 and shuffling away before further insult, I purchased a Jamba Juice smoothie and headed toward the video store to find something to entertain me over the weekend. As I browsed the racks of TV series collections, a young clerk approached me and called out, "Can I help you or something?"
I looked up awkwardly, remembering how I appeared a little down on my luck. He looked at me as though he expected me to try and fill my backpack, which actually held my property law textbook, with merchandise. Worse, because I had to have my tooth pulled, I had to throw away the lid and straw from my smoothie so that I wouldn't aggravate the new wound in my mouth. And apparently the only people who drink Jamba Juice smoothies without straws and lids are homeless narcs.
I shook my head in answer. Just in time, Derek called to say he was a minute away.
Walking out of the store, I shook my head at the way I was treated in the mall. Being treated as though I was a second-class citizen, and not a full person, made me feel like throwing my smoothie down and screaming, "I am human, just like you!"
But I wasn't fooling myself - I was fortunate. Unlike many others who are similarly treated, I was going home to a hot shower, a warm bed and a tomorrow with promise. I just needed a tooth pulled for reality to really hit home.
Derek looked at me as I groggily got into the car. "So you got your tooth pulled, huh? How do you feel?" he asked.
"Pretty lucky, babe. Pretty lucky."
If you want to beat April fool's, please make a donation to HIS (http://www.ihs-hawaii.org/help/help.php).
Illustration by Jon J Murakami
