Day 28: In Which I May Have Bitten Off More Than I Can Chew

 I keep going to title this post and realizing that I have almost certainly used every title that crosses my mind - "Crawling to the Finish Line": "I Think I Can, I Think I Can": Holy Fuck I Do Not Feel Like Blogging Tonight" - at this precise period in NaBloPoMos Past. 

I just realized that I didn't tell you about my teeth-cleaning experience on Tuesday. I also just realized that the bag of McIntosh apples I bought after that teeth-cleaning experience is still sitting on the table unopened and I'm afraid the precious, precious Macs will rot, so I had to lean over awkwardly and tear it open and spread out the apples before proceeding.

It was a very bad experience. It may have been my worse teeth-cleaning experience ever. I wanted to ask the hygienist if she had just wandered in off the street, tied up the actual hygienist and stuffed her (or him) in a closet and then grabbed a plaque scraper and waited for the next unwitting victim (me) to happen by. 

She wasn't mean, really. Just incredibly ham-handed and rough and lacking in any signs of emotion or finesse. Usually when I flinch drastically or my feet actually come up off the chair the hygienist will back off a little or murmur sympathetically. Not this chick. I have a very small jaw and my teeth are very close together, which doesn't make the tooth-cleaning work easy - except for Judy or Trudy or whatever her actual name was, who made no bones about grabbing my lip and pulling it out several inches or bracing her elbow against my cheek to get a better angle. No small talk, which is generally great with me, except she kept saying she was hungry, which maybe explains some things.

And also, fluoride! Wtf? She asked if I wanted fluoride and I sort of thought I must always get the fluoride. Isn't just a liquid that they paint your teeth with? She said you can eat or drink, but don't brush for four hours. And then she sprayed some kind of silly-string-adjacent abomination all over my teeth - like, there were actual bits in my mouth. I was freshly tooth-cleaned, everything should have been smooth and shiny and instead everything was lumpy and gross. 

I know it's a massive cliché that no one likes the dentist. What's to like, really? But I usually come home and feel like I'm going to burst into tears (or actually burst into tears) for a few hours after the dentist. This certainly did nothing to ameliorate that reaction. 

However, like the meme says, self-care isn't all about bubble baths and fuzzy cardigans and bullet journals - sometimes that shit is difficult and unpleasant. Also, dental care is a massive privilege, so I'm really only complaining to be humorous. Also, once I got the silly string off my teeth later that day they were smooth and shiny, so there's that. But our dentist's office is so over-booked at this point that it's really hard to request the hygienist you like (Anita, for me it was always Anita - she was very, very good with neurotic anxious clients). I might have to switch dentists. Oh! But I just thought of a post title that I don't think I've used before, and it's all thanks to Grudy or Frudy or whatever. What do you think?