At the Dentist

So I’m in a dental chair, and it’s not going well.This is not the fault of my dentist. His name is Brian, and he’s excellent. He’s also 14 years old. Not in real years, but in Dental Relativity Years, by which I mean relative to my previous dentist, a man named Stanley who worked on my teeth for decades until he retired at age 90.I loved Stanley, although when I say that he worked “on” my teeth, what I actually mean is that he worked “in the vicinity of” my teeth. He couldn’t physically engage with my actual teeth because my mouth would never let him get near them. I have a severe gag reflex. I gag whenever anybody attempts to put things into my mouth, which unfortunately is a key element of modern dentistry.I gag a LOT. You know that scene in the movie “Marathon Man,” where the evil fugitive Nazi dentist, played by Sir Laurence Olivier, uses dental implements to torture Dustin Hoffman, played by Dustin Hoffman? If a fugitive Nazi dentist ever tried that with me, he would instantly,…