More Fun Than Pulling Teeth
Feb. 21st, 2006 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spatchThe Marathon was a lot of fun, and I crashed for about 18 hours afterwards. I'm preparing a film-by-film writeup which will naturally only be about halfway done before I let it go, but I wanted to tell a wonderful tale of mid-Marathon madness. I'll try not to get into the truly gory details, as groovy as it would be, but I know some folks are gonna cringe when they read it. This is what we aim for.
Halfway through one of the afternoon films at the 24-hour marathon, I cracked my tooth in half. One of my lower canines on the right side. It's a problem tooth for me, much like its brother on the opposite side of my mouth (the one with the root canal and cap/bridge.) I think this tooth is a dead tooth, anyway. The nerves are long gone. I have weak teeth to begin with, thanks to Dad, and I am chagrined in the fact that no matter how much I brush the damn things, they decay easily. Frankly if I could afford it, I'd just get a set of dentures and say to hell with it. I feel old enough at 31 that I find comfort and solace in that thought, and besides, it's fun scaring people with removable teeth. But anyway.
The tooth cracked on a goddamn piece of Toblerone. I don't even think I was munching on a hazelnut or nougaty bit at that point, either. I just felt part of the tooth separate from the other part and then a little bit of pain in the gums. It would've happened eventually, regardless of the foodstuff, so there's no point in blaming the Toblerone. I felt around in my mouth a little and realized the cracked half was still kinda hanging on to the gum. I couldn't really get a good grip on it with my bare fingers, either (ever grip a tooth with two fingers? Feels like you're biting yourself) so I spent the rest of the film worrying it around with my tongue, trying to see if I could loosen it out.
(Here comes the gory part. Avert your eyes!)
Once there was a break, I went up to the concession stand and, with my empty Coke cup in hand, asked for a second cup, this one with water. I then salted the water with the popcorn salt in full view of the attendant, grabbed a few napkins, and then retired to the side stairwell. I iced up the gum around the tooth, grabbed the tooth chip with some wadded-up napkin, and pulled it right out. Then I rinsed a few times with the salt water until I stopped spitting red, and merrily went on my way. Later on I got a bottle of Tylenol and a teeny bottle of Listerine at the CVS across the street, and I felt fortunate for doing so, as it closed at 8:00. I didn't feel comfortable eating until well after midnight, though.
(Okay, it's stopped being gory now!)
The irony of the situation is that at the time, we were watching 12 MONKEYS. Tooth extraction plays a role in the third act. Thankfully mine wasn't as visceral as Bruce Willis', and I didn't have to use a knife I got after beating up a pimp, but still.
Everybody's got a Life List, one of those mental catalogs of goals achieved and goals left to achieve. Often we cross things off our Life List we didn't even know were listed in the first place. This means I can cross "Pulled a tooth in a movie theater" off my Life List without having listed it. And as an added bonus, I can now accurately and, with authority, tell you which films out of the 13 we saw this year were so bad that pulling teeth was not only a preferable option, but more fun besides.
Halfway through one of the afternoon films at the 24-hour marathon, I cracked my tooth in half. One of my lower canines on the right side. It's a problem tooth for me, much like its brother on the opposite side of my mouth (the one with the root canal and cap/bridge.) I think this tooth is a dead tooth, anyway. The nerves are long gone. I have weak teeth to begin with, thanks to Dad, and I am chagrined in the fact that no matter how much I brush the damn things, they decay easily. Frankly if I could afford it, I'd just get a set of dentures and say to hell with it. I feel old enough at 31 that I find comfort and solace in that thought, and besides, it's fun scaring people with removable teeth. But anyway.
The tooth cracked on a goddamn piece of Toblerone. I don't even think I was munching on a hazelnut or nougaty bit at that point, either. I just felt part of the tooth separate from the other part and then a little bit of pain in the gums. It would've happened eventually, regardless of the foodstuff, so there's no point in blaming the Toblerone. I felt around in my mouth a little and realized the cracked half was still kinda hanging on to the gum. I couldn't really get a good grip on it with my bare fingers, either (ever grip a tooth with two fingers? Feels like you're biting yourself) so I spent the rest of the film worrying it around with my tongue, trying to see if I could loosen it out.
(Here comes the gory part. Avert your eyes!)
Once there was a break, I went up to the concession stand and, with my empty Coke cup in hand, asked for a second cup, this one with water. I then salted the water with the popcorn salt in full view of the attendant, grabbed a few napkins, and then retired to the side stairwell. I iced up the gum around the tooth, grabbed the tooth chip with some wadded-up napkin, and pulled it right out. Then I rinsed a few times with the salt water until I stopped spitting red, and merrily went on my way. Later on I got a bottle of Tylenol and a teeny bottle of Listerine at the CVS across the street, and I felt fortunate for doing so, as it closed at 8:00. I didn't feel comfortable eating until well after midnight, though.
(Okay, it's stopped being gory now!)
The irony of the situation is that at the time, we were watching 12 MONKEYS. Tooth extraction plays a role in the third act. Thankfully mine wasn't as visceral as Bruce Willis', and I didn't have to use a knife I got after beating up a pimp, but still.
Everybody's got a Life List, one of those mental catalogs of goals achieved and goals left to achieve. Often we cross things off our Life List we didn't even know were listed in the first place. This means I can cross "Pulled a tooth in a movie theater" off my Life List without having listed it. And as an added bonus, I can now accurately and, with authority, tell you which films out of the 13 we saw this year were so bad that pulling teeth was not only a preferable option, but more fun besides.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-02-21 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 08:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 10:24 pm (UTC)So I sucked the toffee until it dissolved around the tooth and just swallowed the blood any old how, then pretended the minute we exited the building that my tooth had fallen out then and there.
Later in the trip I buried the tooth at the Cliffs of Moher, so that [as my mom put it] there'd always be a piece of me in Ireland. [Shut up. I was 11.] I'm sure it washed out to sea with the first heavy rain, but I hope it freaked out a tourist first.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 10:26 pm (UTC)A lot of people do and never realize it. My mother kept breaking crowns because she does it and now she has a protector-thingie. I think my sister was getting headaches due to it as well.
I seem to have escaped this fate. Not sure how but I have a very low tolerance for stress; I just shut down or I get physically ill.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 08:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 10:04 pm (UTC)I have all my teeth. The one filling I have couldn't be put in until the dentist made the cavity BIGGER. ("You can let it get bigger on its own with pain, or you can let me drill it a little and fill it immediately while you're unconscious. Up to you.") I have no root canals, no caps, no bridges, no broken teeth.
For this, I will be constructing a small altar and offering a sacrifice in flames to the gods of whatever, and also saying a Hail Rob in your name, dude. For lo, you make me appreciate the good things.