Don't let the men in the white coats frighten you... a tale without pictures

Apparently, there are people in this world who naturally remember their dental routine and have a good and noble relationship with their dentists.

Then there are those in this world who express public disdain for all dental convention yet maintain a pristine dental landscape with seemingly nary a care.

And then there are people like me.

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I was only thinking, tonight (while on step eleventy-hundred and five of my mainly theoretical dental movements in D major).

I do that – think while going through the motions.

It often distracts me from the task at hand, but I have found it can be quite useful.


Anyhow,  I was only thinking, tonight that while I am on occasion accused of being an over-thinker,
the majority of my over-thinking is concerned with worrying that I only think that I am over-thinking,
and the rest of humanity is having a bit of a guffaw at my expense,
and perhaps it is an extremely obvious amateur performance of life-skills that I cumbersomely wield
and the reason that they don’t appear to be thinking is that,
to them,
no thought process is actually required?

You think that you’re confused?

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Anyway, one of the OTHER things I was wondering was how it was determined that it was to be thirty minutes before putting anything in your mouth after a dentist visit.

I have an enquiring mind that takes a scientific bent at times, so this immediately took me to the whole process of making that decision.

Do they heighten the rats heart rate;
give it the adrenaline rush equivalent to that of overcoming dental phobia (and the maths involved in that dosage must be boggling);
make whirring and grinding noises and perfume the air with occasional whiffs of ground enamel;
give a few shots of the good stuff through the roof of their little mouths after making their nerves jangle dangerously close to “holey frack fat cat, do we want to take this outside”
and THEN put the smells of good caffeine or sunflower seeds and illicit cornflakes around the poor little rats to entice them and document the effects at various intervals to determine the moment when it becomes safe to shove anything into your gob after torture?

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I can see that there are those of you who are thinking “she’s talking about LAB rats.  We shouldn’t joke about LAB rats.  It’s NOT FUNNY.”

You may be right.

But again, I have an enquiring mind that takes a scientific bent at times, so this immediately took me to the whole process of making that decision.

I mean, how do you really know?

Have you read a report where someone has had my work read out to the poor little rats to entice them to react and documented the effects at various intervals to determine the moment when it became safe or was it indeed torture?

And then did anyone think to document whether this was worse than going to the dentist in the first place?

I have an enquiring mind.