Another Milestone on the Journey of Life - My First Root Canal

Last week at 3:14am I woke up with a throb in my rear left, bottom molar. During the day not too bad. The next night at 2:16am another celtic dance nerve party. The following day a throb that would incapacitate most mortals. Late Friday afternoon a date with the dentist. I got to the dentist's office 45 minutes early! On purpose. Ready for some immediate relief.

They promptly laid me down on the examining table and then had me wait the full 45 minutes with every heart beat sending my afflicted tooth nerves into a high pitch frenzy. Finally the doc shows up. He wanted to verify which tooth was the culprit by banging on it with a metal rod. Hello idiot. I've lived with this dental alien for 3 days so I should know which ivory needs to be attended to. Post haste. He banged anyhow and created a scream heard throughout the county.

His prognosis, a cracked tooth with a likely abscess. The options: yank it or root canal. That's like beat me in the head with an icepick or ballpeened hammer - some choice. I opted for the root canal because the extraction sounded more painful. Besides, I'm not ready for one of those hillbilly grammy gaps.

Little did I know that the real fun was about to begin. First the x-rays. The assistant was fresh out of the local dental training program. She couldn't get the hold my mouth open gizmo located in my mouth to her satisfaction and kept asking me to bit down on the handle. Yup, I got a tooth that would craze Godzilla and she wants me to bit down on a hard object. Next she couldn't get the x-ray lens close enough to my jaw. In the process she banged my jaw with the sore fang at least a dozen times. Finally I asked if I could simply move my head to the machine instead. BTW, all this happens before the sweet magic of novacane.

Next the drilling. Not too bad. Next the needle punch. Apparently the process is to drill to the very tip of the tooth roots, but not quite through. The through part is left to a thin needle that is used to punch through into the jaw where many more nerves reside. Well let me say that the magic of novacane hadn't prepared me for this new set of screaming nerves. The first root was a surprise and it was over before I knew what had happened. Well almost. But I had a second root and I had wised up to what as about to happen again. I soon realized that waiting for pain is much worse than the actual pain. Root number 2 took forever to punch through. Finally done.

Paid the $900 tab. Apparently, BMW payment was due. Went home and waited for the novacane to wear off, which happened all too soon.

Da Vinci Code

Saw this flick a few days ago. I have to admit that the professional critics got this one right. Entertaining with an interesting storyline. But overall, kinda boring. I and apparently 2 blind Austrailian outback aboriginies are the only 3 people left on earth that have not yet read the book. Anyhow, the movie was no better or worse than 100's of other adventure thrillers made and lost in the great panavision archives.

Regardless of the movie's entertainment value, what are the right wing Christians up in arms about? How could anyone think this was a spiritual wedgy on current Christian dogma. Get a grip folks, this is a movie not a scientific documentary.

BTW, how did Leonardo come to know the secrets. He only painted the Last Supper several hundred years after the alleged meal. And that "M" thing. Holy crap it could have been a "V" and meant that the vino had soured.

I on the otherhand would find it rather intriguing that someone like Jesus might have been human enough to have a wife and an offspring or two.