CrumpArt

So, I’ve been walking around for the past three months with a gaping hole in the side of my mouth. A filling came out back in December when I ate some liquorice, at which point I started obsessively flossing, and flossed out another old metal filling. I couldn’t get to the dentist straight away, being the busiest time of the year at work and all, and as time passed I got more paranoid that something awful was going on with my teeth* and it was going to cost me a small fortune (and several teeth) to fix.

I finally decided last week that I’d take the millions from my impending tax return and go to the dentist. Except then I did my tax return, and after the accountant’s fee, I’ll be getting a cheque for approximately $2.54. It turns out one of my employers only charged me 10% tax, instead of 30%. Fuckers. But I realised that I had to go to the dentist anyway. So yesterday I booked in an appointment, and this morning I went in for what I thought was going to be a check-up and discussion of what needed to be done. And before I knew it there was a needle in my gum and I was freaking out. Not about the drilling — I’ve never been afraid of going to the dentist — but about how I was going to pay the bill with my complete lack of funds. Thankfully, even though I’m completely broke, I do have private health insurance, so all my checkups at this particular dentist cost me nothing, and I also pay way less out of pocket for fillings… and they were okay with me coming back to pay the bill tomorrow (I phrased it as “didn’t think to transfer money before the appointment as I wasn’t expecting the fillings today” instead of “I need to borrow money from my partner to pay for this, because I have none of my own”) and I even got some free printouts of my mouth x-rays to use in some lithographs (I don’t think the dentist had ever had that request before). And the three-month old gaping mouth hole is gone. Good stuff.

*This is not the first time I’ve had gaping holes in that area of my mouth. In fact, it was the third time in the past year and a half. My theory is that my wisdom tooth** growing moved all the other teeth slightly and loosened all the old crappy fillings just enough for them to be pulled out by sticky chewing gum and liquorice. I’ve given up the gum, but the liquorice stays.

**I still have all four wisdom teeth. I’m very proud. They’ll be staying too.