The Wisdom Teeth February 21, 2007 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of having my wisdom teeth removed. The doctor gave me a choice of anesthesia, local and/or gas. But he wouldn’t knock me out without a “consult” first. That was fine with me. I chose the double whammy of a local and the nitrous oxide. He asked me, “Have you ever tried NO2 before?” I said, sheepishly, “Well, I did mess around a bit in college.” (And before, I didn’t say, by huffing whip cream cans in 10th grade, but I digress…) So he says, “Well, this is the good shit, the pharmaceutical grade nitrous.

He gave me a few local shots in the mouth, which hurt like a bitch and in fact was the most painful part of the procedure. He slipped the gas over my nose and left me to get high for five minutes as I watched the clock anxiously. I thought, this doesn’t feel like nitrous. As it turns out, the tank was low and he had to replace it with a new one. A few minutes later he’s using some type of crowbar to yank these teeth out of my mouth while talking to the nurse about his cute, Polish intern who’s graduating soon, and something (I was on gas, it’s hard to recall) about his sheep dog. It sounded like conversation over coffee, not one over a drugged, bloody yours truly. He really had to tug on one of the three, and for a moment I felt like a stuck screw, you know, the one that’s stripped and you have to pry it out with the back of a screwdriver.

I spent the night high on Percocet and wondering how wise it was to get my wisdom teeth removed, because as the shots wore off I suddenly realized why he gave me pain killers. I checked my email, where Gavin Grant had asked me and/or Kris Dikeman to host KGB tonight. I thought, I can be brave, I can do this. But logic took hold, especially since I spent half the day in bed. (I knew you weren’t supposed to take Percocet on an empty stomach, but how the fuck am I supposed to eat when I’m in this much pain?) Anyway, Kris Dikeman will be hosting KGB tonight. I won’t be there, so send me some pictures why don’t you?

I will leave you all with this very disturbing article from Alternet.org about the 2008 budget proposed by the Bush Administration and how totally fucking heinous it is and yet all we see on the media is stories about Britney’s haircut and Anna Nicole’s life story. While home last night flicking from channel to channel I noticed that all the networks had commercials for SUVs at the same time. We’re blithely oblivious to the suffering of others because half a world away hundreds of people are dying every day for a war that was started to control the oil that these SUVs require. If that doesn’t make you sick, then you might as well be already dead.