No, seriously, I fear them.

Last week I went to the dentist for the first time in three years. Yes, three years. I know, I KNOW, I am totally gross for not going for so many years!

Let me assure you that I am ashamed that I let it go that long. There is no excuse!

I went to the dentist religiously up until I moved away from home after college, so it's not like I was a chronic dental failure in my youth. In fact, I never even had a cavity. Not one!

After such a long time without a cleaning, though, I was convinced that I would have a mouthful of them. My cavities would have cavities! They would strap me down to the chair and come at my face with needles and drills and all manner of horrible pointy buzzing apparatuses!

I FEAR APPARATUSES.

So I'm lying there pre-cleaning, having x-rays done, being suffocated by the lead blanket they hold you down with, heart drumming so loud that I'm sure the seemingly teenaged hygienist can hear it, and some x-rays pop up on a computer screen adjacent to me. I assume those are my teeth on there, because they're in my little area and they're pretty cute, straight teeth so they must be mine. Because I have cute teeth. (I do. A hygienist once told me so.) And I'm looking and I'm looking and I don't see any weird spots.

Now, I'm no x-ray reading expert, but I watch Bones and CSI and you know, I've seen x-rays before, so I know what it looks like when something isn't right. And I'm looking and I'm looking and everything looks right and I'm puh-raying to the Tooth Fairy that I will floss daily weekly if she'll cut me a break justthisonce.

I'm still lying there when up scoots a little dentist-y type man on a rolling chair, talking to me through his surgical mask without any introduction and of course I can't understand a word he's saying because he has an accent and he's mumbling through a surgical mask. So I say, it looks like I don't have any cavities? Because that is what I wanted him to have said in the first place, and he bobbleheads back at me, through his mask, NAAAW CAVIIITAAAAYS.

And at that point I died a little and stared at the pink ceiling the whole rest of the time because I was so relieved and the hygienist maybe thought I was completely dead because she kept asking me to do things and I didn't do them because I was so very busy being soooo relieved that I was kind of catatonic.

When they were done I practically ran back out to the waiting room to make my six month appointment so I could get out of there before they told me my teeth were nasty pits of rot. The desk lady was looking at my chart with an excited look on her face. She turned it around to face me and, supressing a laugh, pointed to a line of scribble. HE SAY YOU HAVE VARRRY GOOD HYYYYYGIENE, she said, and this time I could understand the accent because she wasn't wearing a surgical mask.

So, I want to thank my Oral-B Vitality toothbrush for making it all possible, and Tooth Fairy, I promise I'll even swish some Listerine sometimes!

When I checked the rear view mirror as I pulled out of my parking space, I noticed that I had blue dentist toothpaste smeared all over my cheek and down my neck (no wonder the desk lady was laughing), but I didn't even care.

Because this girl?

NAAAW CAVIIITAAAAYS.