Every once in a while, I try to face some of my fears. For instance, I’m afraid of bees. So I will sit Indian style in the grass
and try to become one with nature.
If a bee comes near me and starts buzzing dangerously close to my ear
canal, I will try to sit perfectly still.
This is extremely difficult for me because normally, if I even spot a
bee in the distance, I start screaming at the top of my lungs and running
around in circles like I’m on fire.
And sometimes I cry. I am
also afraid of heights. So I will
practice becoming comfortable with heights by standing on a curb and looking
down. When my dizziness gets to be
too much, I walk away and tell myself I’ll try again tomorrow. But one of my top ten fears of all time
is going to the dentist. I would
rather be tossed out of an airplane than sit in a dentist’s chair.
People
sometimes say to me, “You have such nice teeth!” and I say, “Thank you! I do
absolutely nothing to maintain them!
Sometimes I even fall asleep with candy bars in my mouth!” Well, they may look okay but lately
they’ve been poking their roots into my business, entering my dreams and
whispering, “Floss me! Take me to
the dentist! Don’t you care about
us?” If ever I find myself jogging
(which is very rare) I can feel the teeth on the top rattling and threatening
to come loose. If I floss, they
will fall out for sure. I chew
everything with my front teeth, like a rabbit—except chocolate; chocolate I
just let melt on my tongue because chewing it is not an option. Well, the jig is up. I can no longer live in tooth
denial.
A few weeks ago, I was eating a
piece of cheese and my tooth fell out.
I gasped and my seven yr. old daughter asked me what was wrong. I showed her my tooth and she said,
“Well at least it will grow back! And the tooth fairy will come!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that neither of these
things would happen. So I just
looked at her and smiled—a big toothless smile. It was time to face my fear and call the dentist.
At my appointment, I was so embarrassed
that I started rattling off so many excuses as to why my teeth were so jacked
up. Well, my tooth genetics are
very bad. I mean, neither of my parents even have teeth. This half of a tooth I’m pretty sure is
just a baby tooth that never fell out.
Oh and I was pregnant twice and my babies totally drained all of my
calcium from me. None of my excuses included the fact that I hadn’t been
to a dentist since I was fourteen.
It didn’t help that the dentist I
randomly choose based on nothing scared the crap out of me. He was a big Russian man who had zero
tolerance for sissies like me. He
said, “Vhat? You scared? Don vorry, I von’t feel a thing! Muahahahahaha!” And then, as he was coming towards my
face with the needle, he did the strangest thing. He started making robot noises like,
Beep-Bop-Boop-Bop-Beep. A Russian
robot was about to stick a needle in my face. He knew I was scared so he was treating me like a baby. I am not a baby! I shouted inside my head. I wish I were a baby because then it would be
acceptable to poop my pants right now! But then I calmed down…kind of.
I told myself that I could do this,
that I could be strong, like bear-- like Russian bear. And I thought my throat was closing and
that I was having a heart attack but the dentist told me, “Don be ridiculous.”
So I prayed for death. It sucked.
Every single second of it was the worst ever. But I did it anyway because I don’t want to look like a
pirate.
But the moral of this story is,
facing your fears doesn’t always make them go away. Bees sting, heights are scary, and going to the dentist
sucks. I have to go back to the
dentist for a root canal, and I’m still afraid. Next time I think I will beg them to knock me out because it
is a fear I don’t feel like facing without drugs. The end.
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