Crazy Eights

I haven’t felt this nauseous since I was five; that time my mother dressed me up in a Ralph Lauren cotton cable vest and chinos and entered me in a fashion show at the Fair Oaks Mall, instructed me to socialize with the other child models (the term child soldier had not yet been coined) and parade down a runway in front of hundreds of gawking parents. In the end, I could not summon the strength or courage to participate.

About a month ago, I went to the dentist for an elementary procedure, a relatively small and simple cavity filling.  What the vulpine dentist forgot to mention was that OPEC had  commissioned him to drill for oil, and my lower left molar looked more promising than anything he had seen of late. Eight shots of Novocain later my entire face was numb…with the exception, of course, of my lower left molar.  After a handful of drilling attempts, and coming up dry each time, we wrote the day off and scheduled a new appointment.  Eight hours later, I finally began to regain control of my muscles, the pain settling in for a long winter’s nap.  But I think I was less concerned about the pain than I was with having stand up to public scrutiny in my office all day.

So today I was nauseous. I returned to the dentist, stomach aflutter with the lucid memory of my last visit, to settle some unfinished business.  Oddly enough, my friend Megha was also getting a cavity filled.  The two of us had previously set up a double date, dinner and a movie, with Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.  I had visions of the two of us gallivanting around Arlington, drooling on each other and mumbling with our slurred speech.  The heartfelt onlooker would have smiled at the “special” couple on a date.  But the second trip sealed the deal, and all the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly.  Eight minutes later I, along with my phobia of oral hygienists, was out the door.