How I Came Unglued, Was Dethroned, and Was Put Back Together

So I'm sitting at my dear old dad's last night, having a visit and watching a little Stephen Colbert, and he offers me a box of hard candies: "Try one of these - they're really good." Mmmm. Caramel. It WAS good. For about a minute. Until I bit down on it, and the one crown I have on my lower left side joined the candy as a free agent in my mouth.

I must say, I'm not one to talk about stuff like this. (Or maybe I am, because I'm writing about it, huh?) I don't like admitting that my beautiful set of pearly whites, one of my best features, are compromised in any way. But there I was, with a space between my teeth that felt, to my exploring tongue, like the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, that tiny little tooth impersonator was secured in a snack-sized Ziploc so I could get it fixed today.

I started calling the dentist at 6:59 this a.m. (they won't answer until 7:00) and was told to come in at 1:00 p.m.  More time to spend with that weird gap. (I don't like any spaces between my teeth that are wider than a piece of floss.) And then the renovation work started.

Dr. D. explained that he had to first isolate the area (which sounds really cool, like it might involve those neon orange cones and a guy directing traffic, but only amounted to packing about a pound of cotton pads on either side of the "work site" so that I was properly gagged and silenced). Then he had to clean the area, dry, prime, dry again...and apply glue to the crown and put it back into its proper place. I felt like a DIY renovation project. The kind where someone forces you not only to taste glue (and by the way, it wasn't the fun white glue that everyone tasted in grade school - this was grown-up-cement-your-crown-back-in-nasty-glue), but then you pay a gazillion dollars for the experience.

I'll tell you one thing: no more hard candy caramels for me. Well, at least no more on the left side of my mouth. I'm not completely traumatized, you know.

© 2014 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie