Hush My Mouth

By A.J. Llewellyn

I have blogged before about my extreme dental phobia. My problem has been so extreme that a friend of a friend, let's call her Sandy, called me a few days ago and asked if she could use me as a guinea pig for her dental exam.
"I hear you have bad teeth," were her opening words.
Not exactly a way to win friends and influence people.
I was happy to report that she was misinformed. I told her with some pride that I now have my runaway cavities, crowns and a deep cleaning firmly behind me. I now have a great dentist and in spite of a horrible incident last week during sedation dentistry - I woke up in the middle of it - and a big ol' bruise on my arm from the injection site, I am no longer a man with a bad mouth.
I love my sparkling teeth!
Sandy was not pleased and virtually hung up on me.
Her mom called me next and said Sandy was devastated. She thought I'd be the perfect guinea pig to help her pass her oral exam.
Why me, Lord? Why?
Long story short, I got drafted into helping her find a new victim. She thought I was such a shoo-in she hadn't bothered finding a backup. And the exam was scheduled for this morning.
Big shumuck that I am, I did look for bad teeth and found her the owner of the worst ones I've ever seen in my life.
I found him at the gym.
He was a beaut. He's a broke boxer and he was willing to be her guinea pig in exchange for free dental work.
Except he's a bigger dental phobe than I am.
Sandy's family enlisted an impressive roster of babysitters to keep the guy busy and his mind off this morning's procedure.
I was drafted into babysitting him last night - the exam was 9am this morning. Why I said I would help I'll never know, but from 6.30pm to 11pm last night, I kept him with me and he kept looking at my arm.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
I knew if I said, "Dental surgery" he would run all the way to Tijuana.
He was nice enough to sit through a meeting I had to attend for work. He even put up with me thundering away on my laptop as he watched TV.
We argued only when he wanted to watch bull fights.
He settled for a UFC match.
He ate fast food and I kept checking he wasn't sneaking out the door when I went to the bathroom.
The only time he grumbled, really, was when I forced him to walk the dog with me at 11pm because I didn't trust him not to run away.
I handed him off to Sandy's boyfriend at 11pm. He in turn, handed him over to Sandy who was swatting for her exam and she arrived bright and early with her guinea pig this morning.
I just learned that poor Sandy was disqualified because the guinea pig's dental problems were so severe the instructors felt she could never complete them in the allotted time.
So it's all my fault. From now on I shall keep my phobias to myself.
Hush my mouth and smack my grandma if I ever blog about my teeth again!
Aloha oe,

A.J.