I only have two molars left in my mouth that do not have some sort of filling. I’ve always been prone to cavities. Which makes me wonder why I stopped going to dentist after college.

I could blame poor dental insurance coverage, but really I have an irrational fear of dentists. It dates back to my childhood when I used to visit a fantastical dental wonderland of fun for children in Northeast Philly. That dentist has long since retired to Arizona last I heard from a grade-school classmate who started working for him after high school.

But I vividly remember this dentist telling a hygenist that his vacation condo had been destroyed by a hurricane and all of his property washed away. All the while he counted off multiple divets in my teeth for fillings with dollars signs flashing in his eyes. Thinking back on it now, I probably completely made this up in grade school as a bullshit story to tell other kids why I had so many cavities.

Anyway, I’m reaping the rewards of my paranoia now. My prize for returning to a proper regiment of oral hygeine: five cavities and one root canal. Two of the cavities will most likely require root canal at some point in the future. The root canal was actually the least painful procedure. It’s never good when drilling goes so deep the bit gets lodged in a tooth. Ouch.