Oh cheeseburgers, why have you forsaken me??

I don't know how to explain my love affair with cheeseburgers. They are basically the foundation of my food pyramid. There is nothing better than a juicy beef patty hugged between two soft bready-buns with a delicious mustard/mayo/ketchup blend acting as the sweet glue, holding this holy uber-sandwich together. And let's not forget the cheese- the CHEEEEEESE! I will tolerate the presence of vegetables in the form of a thinly-sliced tomato and a singular leaf of lettuce. Cheeseburgers are lovely in any season, for any occasion! I even once made this computer drawing of a tap-dancing cheeseburger. He's fancy AND delicious.

In celebration of finding the coolest Christmas wrapping paper ever last night, I treated my taste-buds to my favorite beef-vehicle in the form of a Five Guys "little cheeseburger" (aka: 1 patty.... I was being conservative... for once). My first few bites were heaven-- perfect ratio of juicy beef to cheese to saucy-goodness. All of a sudden, my tongue scraped against something sharp on the left side of my mouth... was there a foreign shard hidden in my precious patty? No, the pointy object was... WHAT WAS LEFT OF MY TOOTH!


Oh lawd, oh lawd, child! You don't understand-- I've had NIGHTMARES about my teeth falling out or breaking. It's one of my ultimate freak-outs. Fortunately, I managed to keep my shit together until I got home, where I immediately typed the words "broken tooth no dental insurance Rochester NY" into my google search bar while trying to keep myself from tonguing my broken tooth nugget. The Type-A personality took over and determined a plan: I would call the Eastman Dental urgent care clinic in the morning and see if they could fix me asap. With that next step identified, I told myself to calm the eff down and play some pogo scrabble. I climbed into bed and attempted to distract myself with last week's episodes of The Office and Parks & Recreation. Alas, I turned off the lights and spent an hour laying there in the dark, mind racing, stress mounting, emotions spiraling, and eventually tears flowing. Stupid tooth nugget. Thank God for my kitten, who must have sensed my distress and sought to calm me and dry my tears by curling up on my face.


Cut to this morning-- I barrel through my 8:30am committee meeting and run downstairs to make the call. They direct me to come in anytime and warn me that my wait could be between 1-3 hours. I timidly explain to my department that I'm peacing out to get my broken toof fixed and I head to the clinic. Fortunately, the waiting room was nearly empty when I arrived. I signed-in, filled out the necessary paperwork and took my clipboard up to the counter. The woman behind the counter then proceeded to ask my some "standard questions", the first one of which was "are you married or are you... single?" I swear to God there were italics in her voice. I half-jokingly replied "and will that determine the quality of my dental care today?" which made her laugh and morph from bored and jaded nurse to normal woman. Anyhoo, I went back to my chair and witnessed 30 minutes of Paula Deen cooking Thanksgiving heart-attack dishes with a few short breaks to notice my fellow patients. How can I say this... there was one woman there with the crack shakes, another with stripper attire on, and my favorite was the woman with the sideways mohawk who only had teeth on the right side of her mouth, top and bottom. Fearing that my broken tooth was the first step into my metamorphosis into this woman, I buried my nose in a Real Simple and clutched my stylishly coordinating purse to my fashionable peacoat. (judger).

my future?

At last, my name was called. A beautiful young Indian woman escorted me into the examination room and settled me into the dreaded chair. In front of me on the wall was an LCD monitor and I momentarily was distracted by the exciting idea that maybe, just maybe, they let patients watch cartoons while getting worked on. But no, as I was to learn when the dentist entered the room and hit the power button, revealing the x-ray of my teeth. The kindly ginger-haired lady-dentist explained that I had an uber-cavity and that they might have to rip muh toof out.... RIP MUH TOOF OUT! I tried to keep my shit together as she left the room to further consult with her Dental Jedi Master. All I could think about was the toothless lady in the waiting room... was I to inherit the same fate? Would I soon find myself with a sideways mohawk and a good-for-nothing boyfriend named Rodney who wouldn't even drive me to the goddamn dentist, that bastard? Minutes later, ginger-dentist was back and with good news-- they had decided that they could save the tooth (and my sanity) with a super root canal. Fabulous.


Fast-foward about 30 minutes-- my mouth is wide open, my jaw is beginning to hurt, I can't feel the left half of my face, and I've got what seems to be 4 hands in my mouth, between the pretty Indian and the knowledgeable ginger. My fists were clenched, my knuckles were white, and the entire lower half of my body was trembling. For some reason, I don't know why, everything that I've been stressing out about over the last week or so just kicked me in the heart in that moment and out of nowhere I just started crying... which turned into choked sobbing complete with snorting and gagging noises (because of the 4 hands in my mouth) as I tried to breathe and calm the eff down. That poor ginger... she thought she had caused the meltdown with a particularly painful jab to my tooth hole. How was I to explain to her that I'm just a pussy and I really just wanted someone, ANYONE (even the beautiful Indian girl with the spit-sucker-wand-thingy) to hold my hand and soothe all of my anxieties? How do I tell her that I need support? Especially when I have a ratchet set in my mouth?


From then on, Ariel and Jasmine were very nice to me and repeated "You are doing great! You're so brave! You rock, sister!" about 40 times until the procedure was over. I got cleaned up (the combination of drool on the lower half of my face and messy mascara runs on the top half of my face made for a charming image) and thanked my Dental/Disney princesses for their services and sympathy during my molar meltdown. I also suggested they play Pixar movies on that little flat screen. I forked over my fancy purple credit card and deadpanned to the nurse "well, my family's Christmas gifts from me this year will have to be my beautiful smile... cause now I'm broke". She only half-laughed as she stapled my receipt to my "this is what was wrong with you" sheet and sent me through the door, back to the waiting room with Rodney and his toothless lover, Crack-shakes McGee, and Ol' Droop E. Beanbags the stripping wonder. 


In all my years I would never have guessed that my beloved beef sammich would do me in like this. It's God's most wicked irony that the patty I love best would be the catalyst for my ultimate tooth shame and an unwanted dental adventure that resulted in so much spit, snot, tears, and lingering jaw pain. It's enough to make me swear them off... for a few days at least... maybe...