It's time to woman up.

It's finally that time again. I've been slack the past few years, but it's time I put on my big girl pants, took a deep breath, and endured.

Yep, I have a dentist appointment.

I haaaaaate going to the dentist. I'm sort of stoic (for the most part) about pain, so it's not that, but I always feel ripped off. It's much like going to car repair shops. I have no way of knowing whether they're lying to me or not, short of going to multiple dentists for opinions (which I am too cheap to do), but it always feels like I'm getting scammed.

Nothing hurts in my mouth, thankfully, and I'm embarking upon an even more religious brushing/flossing/mouthwashing regimen than usual in an attempt to avoid them staring at me and judging me for a lack of forceful flossing. And the LECTURES. Why do dental hygienists feel that they can lecture you about your tooth cleaning habits? Am I paying you to expound ad nauseam upon my dental failings? NO.

It just seems like I ought to get my teeth professionally cleaned, and I kind of wonder whether I have a cavity in one tooth. No pain, but it is a little discolored. Fortunately it's in a place where no one can see it unless they stick their face in my mouth, in which case they will have far larger issues than a tiny dark spot on my inner molar. Hopefully it'll just be a stain or something and nothing that will have to be hacked at. I am not one of those people who must have perfectly pristine teeth the color of new printer paper, but I'd rather they weren't developing holes or anything.

It's next Wednesday at 9:45am, so I'm sure you'll all get to enjoy listening to me complain about it if it turns out I have an alien colony living in there or something. In the meantime, I'll probably stew about it. This is just one of those awful things you have to do if you don't want your body parts falling off.

I knew a girl once (I thought her name was Dorito for the longest time, turns out it was not that, but it was close) who ran off to join the circus. I shit you not. This really happened. Anyway, she came back after two years or so and evidently hadn't brushed her teeth the entire time she was in the circus, because they were all brown and looked like they would make squishing sounds if you touched them. AWFUL. Ever after I've had a horror of things happening to my own teeth. Heaven forfend I should end up with squishy circus teeth!

I have odd fixations about stuff. This tooth thing is very similar to when I watched 60 Minutes or something as a little kid and they had a program about osteoporosis. I'd be damned if I was going to end up like those poor old ladies in the show, so ever since that day I've drunk milk like there's no tomorrow. The up side of it all is that some years ago when I was in high school or thereabouts, I was stupidly running through the house and happened to have my right arm sticking out a bit. I slammed it into a wall on my way through a doorway, and it smashed in the plaster and bent the steel girder or whatever's inside of walls, but I DID NOT BREAK MY ARM. May or may not have anything to do with the gallons of consumed moo juice.

But you never know...