More evolved or less wise
My dentist says that wisdom teeth are slowly becoming an unnecessary part of the human anatomy and that they are getting smaller and smaller and one day we won't have them anymore. He says that humans are evolving to not grow wisdom teeth. I looked this up on Wikipedia to see if it was true or not and it appears to jive with the popular opinion out there at the moment. Our softer diet and the fact that we don't lose as many of our front teeth these days (excluding hockey players) make wisdom teeth a bit of a historical oddity. Of course if I go and check it tomorrow it probably will be completely the opposite - but that's the joy of Wikipedia isn't it?
The fact that I did actually have one completely descended and two almost-there-but-not-quite third molars (crafty technical dentistry name for wisdom teeth) means that I am not the endpoint of this evolutionary descent towards less teeth in the mouth. However the fact that it was so incredibly hard to get to with the toothbrush and was causing all sorts of problems with my other not-quite-there yet wisdom teeth covered oh so daintily by a flappy little bit of gum meant that it was time for me to get in the chair and become one tooth less wise and similarly 25% closer to a more evolved human.
To be perfectly honest I was terrified about the procedure. This was my first "extraction" and pretty much every single story I'd ever heard about people and their wisdom teeth sent me running in tears crying "Uncle". Not going under general anaesthetic and generally being awake at all to have a tooth pried out of my head contributed strongly to my fear. As it turns out my dentist is a wizard. After waiting for the freezing to take effect (not nearly long enough in my apprehensive pre-op opinion) and having a quick chat about how our generation got the short end of the environmental stick he lowered the chair to the ready position and informed me I'd feel "a little pressure". Now I've given people a lot of watered down and euphemistic encouragement in my time - "the server will be up real soon now", "don't think of it as losing your last month's work, more as a chance to do it better with the blessing of experience" - but I was pretty sure that "a little pressure" was the Moby Dick of euphemisms, coming from a man who was about to do something horrible to me that is usually reserved for the torture scene in bad spy novels. I had visions of cracking jawbones, him kneeling up on the chair to get more leverage, calls for "the big wrench", whimpers as my machismo shattered and I leapt out of the chair in tears crying "Uncle".
All of which was completely melodramatic and unnecessary. I'm such a drama queen. 30 seconds later he had removed the tooth and the dental nurse applied enormous amounts of suction to the fountain of blood that had suddenly appeared in my mouth for no apparent reason. "That's it" he said, turning away. "Not too bad". I can't even say there was more than a little pressure as there wasn't, he was good to his word. I even got to see the gnarled little thing once he'd cleaned it up and the blood fountain had subsided a little. Not too bad at all. As I said, he's a dental wizard.
So now I am one tooth closer to being that gummy old grandpa with the cool party trick involving the glass of water and dentures, a quarter of the way to being without my troublesome third molars, a little in awe of how good my dentist really is, and not so terrified about the next two which may require the deep sleep and an oral surgeon. I like to think that I'm now more highly evolved, but that's probably being just a little too melodramatic.
The fact that I did actually have one completely descended and two almost-there-but-not-quite third molars (crafty technical dentistry name for wisdom teeth) means that I am not the endpoint of this evolutionary descent towards less teeth in the mouth. However the fact that it was so incredibly hard to get to with the toothbrush and was causing all sorts of problems with my other not-quite-there yet wisdom teeth covered oh so daintily by a flappy little bit of gum meant that it was time for me to get in the chair and become one tooth less wise and similarly 25% closer to a more evolved human.
To be perfectly honest I was terrified about the procedure. This was my first "extraction" and pretty much every single story I'd ever heard about people and their wisdom teeth sent me running in tears crying "Uncle". Not going under general anaesthetic and generally being awake at all to have a tooth pried out of my head contributed strongly to my fear. As it turns out my dentist is a wizard. After waiting for the freezing to take effect (not nearly long enough in my apprehensive pre-op opinion) and having a quick chat about how our generation got the short end of the environmental stick he lowered the chair to the ready position and informed me I'd feel "a little pressure". Now I've given people a lot of watered down and euphemistic encouragement in my time - "the server will be up real soon now", "don't think of it as losing your last month's work, more as a chance to do it better with the blessing of experience" - but I was pretty sure that "a little pressure" was the Moby Dick of euphemisms, coming from a man who was about to do something horrible to me that is usually reserved for the torture scene in bad spy novels. I had visions of cracking jawbones, him kneeling up on the chair to get more leverage, calls for "the big wrench", whimpers as my machismo shattered and I leapt out of the chair in tears crying "Uncle".
All of which was completely melodramatic and unnecessary. I'm such a drama queen. 30 seconds later he had removed the tooth and the dental nurse applied enormous amounts of suction to the fountain of blood that had suddenly appeared in my mouth for no apparent reason. "That's it" he said, turning away. "Not too bad". I can't even say there was more than a little pressure as there wasn't, he was good to his word. I even got to see the gnarled little thing once he'd cleaned it up and the blood fountain had subsided a little. Not too bad at all. As I said, he's a dental wizard.
So now I am one tooth closer to being that gummy old grandpa with the cool party trick involving the glass of water and dentures, a quarter of the way to being without my troublesome third molars, a little in awe of how good my dentist really is, and not so terrified about the next two which may require the deep sleep and an oral surgeon. I like to think that I'm now more highly evolved, but that's probably being just a little too melodramatic.
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