This morning I went back to the dentist to get a filling on the number 15 occlusal. When I walked into the dental office, Teresa, the dental assistant, told me from behind the reception desk that I should go sit in operatory 1 and I was welcome to bypass the coatrack in the waiting room and hang my coat on the back of the operatory door. Odd, but I am nothing if not obedient, so I sat in the chair and noticed that the tray still held used instruments and wads of bloody gauze. I shifted my gaze to the corner, where a decent-sized spider was meandering on the wall. All very creepy. A few minutes later, the assistant came rushing in and said, “Oh my God! I didn’t clean the room! Oh no! This is terrible! Come this way!” She nearly collided in the hallway with the dentist, who said that operatory 3 was open and I should sit in there. I was relieved that the dentist didn’t yell at poor Teresa, who kept apologizing and saying she’d never done anything like that before. (My dentist is a jerk, for the record, and not above passive-aggressing or outright aggressing against his staff. But inertia and the convenient location have kept me from finding another. Plus, I like his hygienist.)

Anyway, No. 3 was clean but wasn’t set up for the procedure, so the dentist and Teresa busied themselves getting Novocaine and ripping open an autoclaved packet of drill bits. He numbed my gum and told Teresa to check on the patient next door. When he started drilling my tooth, Teresa ran in and said, “Doctor, please come in here; he won’t stop bleeding!” and I was told not to close my mouth as they went to deal with the other patient. When the dentist came back, I wondered if he’d changed his gloves after stopping the guy’s bleeding. He got back to work, and Teresa joined us shortly afterward to take over suctioning duties. My dentist started talking about the report on Lyme disease his son had to write last night, and how he’d helped the kid come up with the title, “Don’t Let Lyme Disease Tick You Off.” Then he started to tell us the best way to remove a tick that had buried its jaws in your skin: “Whatever you do, don’t squeeze the wound! That just forces more of the Lyme disease bacteria into your blood. Try to grab it as close to the head as you can and pull it out.”