Hereditary Hate

What most parents really mean when they say that they are trying to instill values in their children is that they are trying to instill their own personal values in their kids. If they are fundamentalist Muslim, I'm sure they hope their daughters wear burkhas instead of hair extensions. And if they are multiculturally-inclined, I'm sure they want their children to be tolerant of all faiths, creeds, and types of hummus.

I'd like to think that I am open-minded enough to allow my children to choose their own values, but what I really mean is that I hope I give my children the freedom to choose and that their choices reflect the ones I would have made. If that doesn't really sound like hoping your children make their own choices, you're probably right. Parents are almost always vicariously living through their children, fathers hoping that their own football failures will be undone by their preternaturally talented sons. I will freely admit that I am guilty of this indiscretion. I am not concerned, however, if my son or daughter is the best athlete or even mathlete in school. Nor do I care if my kids experiment with various religions or types of hummus. There is only one belief I must pass on to my children lest I utterly and miserably fail as a father: hatred of the dentist.

I'm not referring to a general dislike of dentistry or the casual dread of dental work. I am instead referring to a hatred that goes to one's core, a pre-cognitive prejudice that can never be undone. My last visit to the dentist only confirmed my need to pass on my hatred as if it were a dominant gene. It was a visit that made me re-think the genius of Dante, as he failed to reserve a special circle of hell for dentists. But before I delve into the sordid story of last week's dental debacle, let me give a little background.

Growing up, my family didn't have much money. We did, however, have dental insurance. It wasn't good dental insurance, mind you, but it was something to make sure that my sister and I didn't have British smiles and you couldn't kick a field goal through our front teeth. A candy connoisseur, I visited the dentist frequently. Naturally, I'd wait until the pain was debilitating before telling my mom, but a day without Fun Dip and Pixie Stix was almost as unbearable as the pain itself and made me ask for the dentist. Even though we lived in San Jose, for some reason our insurance only covered a dental clinic in San Francisco. We dutifully trekked to the clinic for what would always be an all-day affair.

The first part of the day would always be spent the same way: my mom would haggle over whether our insurance was accepted and then we would watch as throngs of poor people with really bad teeth, most of whom were slumped over in obvious pain, were called before us. After waiting hours, we would be called into what can only be called another waiting room. The only difference was that I would be seated in a regular dental chair. The problem was that there were way too many patients and too few dentists so one had to wait even more after getting to the chair. It was basically a tiered waiting system, ostensibly so that people who had already waited for hours would think they had made progress and would thus be less likely to take out their aggression and pain on the staff.

The situation didn't improve once the actual dentist arrived. I never had one consistent dentist, but was instead relegated to whichever dentist had just recently gotten off probationary status for their litany of misdeeds. When we were lucky, I think we got dental students to perform the work. The students weren't retreads like the drugged-out dentists trying to get their licenses back, but it was clear even to a ten year old that they didn't know what they were doing. The dentists would look at my X-rays and then proceed to numb up my entire face. I'm pretty sure that they loaded up on extra novacaine because they knew that they would take three hours to perform twenty minutes of dental work. The dentists were always shuttling among a dozen or so patients, filling a quarter of a cavity before coming back to get another quarter an hour later. It was a painfully slow process, one that virtually ensured that even the excessive amount of novacaine I was given wore off before the dental work was completed. So there I sat, a ten year old with two partially filled cavities waiting for the dentist to finish the job while my mouth began throbbing. It was no use to complain, for the clinic was likely to kick you out with gaping holes in your teeth if you even mentioned that you had somewhere to be that day. And it is that painful throbbing accompanied by invasive dental work done with only the last vestiges of painkiller tingling in my mouth that I associate with all dentists.

To this day, I don't care if my dentist had a hand in curing AIDS, he's still a goddamned dentist. My visit last week only confirmed this deep-seated hatred. I came to the dentist for one reason: two of my molars were killing me. Don't get me wrong, I believe in going to the dentist for preventative care. I just can't bring myself to actually go before there's a major problem. Like most people, I like to delay painful experiences until they become intolerably painful and finally force me to confront reality, all the while chastising myself for being so stupid and procrastinating so long.

Upon arrival at the dentist's office, I had to listen to the inevitable lecture about why I had waited years between visits. I should confess now that the only people I hate more than dentists are moralizing and judgmental dentists. (I'm not sure if “moralizing and judgmental dentist” is redundant and covers all dentists or that it just aptly describes the ones I've had.) I know that I've been lazy about dental hygiene and that I should stop chewing gum, eating candy, or enjoying any food that actually tastes good if I want good teeth. I know I should probably stop treating flossing like an optional exercise, reserved for those occasions where I use the edge of a matchbook to clean out the remnants of the latest steakhouse sojourn. And I know that my dentist knows I'll disregard anything he says once I leave his office and the pain has subsided. Knowing all this, my dentist still insists on giving his bullshit lecture as if I were one of the kids riding the short bus.

Last week, as the left side of my mouth was throbbing, my dentist began with his usual lecture. Predictably, I disregarded all of it. When he finally started asking me where the pain was, he had already managed to insert a suction device, three scapel-like instruments, and nearly his entire fist into my mouth. I've always wondered if this technique is taught in dental school in order to ensure that a patient can't meaningfully respond and has suddenly and unknowingly acquiesced to a few thousands dollars of dental work by virtue of the patient's inevitably unintelligible grunts and nods. After a few minutes of continuing to probe the source of my pain with complete disregard for the pain I was enduring or the gushing of blood from my gums, the dentist swiftly pronounced that I needed a build-up of my rear molar.

I'm sure most patients would have just deferred to the dentist and his experience at this point. Given my terrible teeth and the constant pain, however, I suspected something more serious was in order. I quickly asked whether the dentist thought I needed a root canal. I knew that my dentist didn't do root canals himself, and I wanted to know whether I needed to see a specialist. I was suspicious that I didn't need something drastic for the acute pain, and I told him that I preferred to just get the root canal over with if that's what I needed. My dentist proceeded to tell me that there was an 80 percent chance that the tooth would never need a root canal and even if I ended up needing one it wouldn't be for quite some time. I didn't realize at the time, however, that there was a greater than 80 percent chance he was full of shit. Instead, I reluctantly followed his advice and had the dentist perform a build-up on the tooth. (Why the procedure is called a 'build-up' when the drill just bores a hole into the tooth remains unclear to me.)

Unsurprisingly, I was back in the office a week later. The dentist had wanted to fit my tooth for a crown, but I told him that the pain was even worse than it had been when I first came to see him. As is my style, I didn't mince words. I basically told him that whatever he had done didn't work. He seemed taken aback by my candor, and he proceeded to re-examine the tooth. After looking at the tooth for two or three seconds and then basically stabbing my tooth and gums for another minute, he unapologetically pronounced, “I think you need a root canal.” If it hadn't been for the fact that he had all of the sharp instruments in his hands, I think I would have tried to strangle him. Not only did I pay him for a worthless procedure that left me in more pain than when I had come in, I was also looking at another day spent in a dentist's chair.

The next day I went to see the specialist. After looking at the X-ray for a few seconds, he immediately said that I needed a root canal. “Even a dental student would see that,” he remarked. A root canal soon followed, and my Friday afternoon quickly wasted away in the dentist's office. Even the nitrous failed to make me forget my hatred of dentists.

I'm sure that the readers of this blog (all three of them) are probably wondering what this story has to do with my children. A fair question, I suppose. Some parents are trying to pass along their love of art. Others are trying to extend a legacy of charitable giving with the next generation. I, on the other hand, am fully dedicated to passing along my pet peeves and personal prejudices. I hold out hope that my children, regardless of whether their molars are misshapen or their canines crack, learn to hate the things that I hate. It is probably not the most enlightened approach to parenting. Hell, it's probably the antithesis to an enlightened approach, a benighted break from political correctness only a true asshole like me could hope for. Undeterred by political correctness, I fervently hope that I can pass on my hate. May the next generation of Delicinos love to loathe the dentist.