Dear Friends,
The Hard Taco song for February is called, "The Landshark and the Seahorse." This earworm will crawl into your auditory canal and pose for pictures while planting its wormy flag in your temporal lobe. Your master's degree in parasitology may help you understand the earworm's life cycle, but it won't help you get rid of it.
Trigger warning: I'm going to mention tooth decay.
Me and my teeth have been through a lot together. I've had chips, cracks, erosions, irregular bites, defective teething rings, fang failure, and pathologically good breath. Sadly, over the last few months, I spent more time in the dentist's chair than on the treadmill. Fortunately, I have never really suffered from tooth decay (I WARNED YOU IT WAS COMING). However, I have been through almost every mainstream dental procedure, and here is what I've learned.
Teeth cleaning - A semiannual scouring of the jawline is required to scoop out all the tartar sauce that builds up in front of your tongue. Upon completion, you will be rewarded with a plastic goodie bag containing a thumbnail-sized box of floss and a thumb-sized box of toothpaste. According to the ADA, you must use these samples sparingly because they need to last the full six months until your next cleaning. Of course, why would you trust your dental health to the Americans with Disabilities Act?
Veneers - Commercial insurance covers one hit of high-flow nitrous oxide gas per billable dental procedure. However, placing a veneer is completely painless; you won't need the anesthesia, so your dentist will most likely hit that whippet herself beforehand. The veneer is then affixed with the help of both a dental hygienist... and a gentle high dentist.
Fillings - So I'm talking to my buddy Chad, and I says, "Chad, did you know that tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body?" So my main man Chad turns to me, and says (get this), "Bro, my body's got something harder, if you know what I mean!" Oh man, that one had us in stitches! Chad is such a good guy, and it's really nice that he can have a sense of humor about swallowing all that elemental boron with a hardness quotient of 277 gigapascals.
Crowns - The process of placing a crown is a two-visit procedure. During the first visit, the dentist will prepare the tooth and create a molding. During the second visit (the coronation), can archbishop will place the crown upon your tooth while trumpeters sound a fanfare, church bells ring, and hundreds of rock doves are released into the waiting room.
Depulping - Your carious bicuspid has been very naughty and needs a good one of these.
Extraction - It's far too risky for the oral surgeon to just walk into his office and extract your tooth. He must first conduct aerial and satellite reconnaissance of the office's layout and security measures, identify a weak point in the perimeter, locate the molar and gather intel on any receptionists or dental assistants that could impede removal. He then must move quickly to the pre-determined extraction point, where the tooth will rendezvous with support units and be exfiltrated from the gums. This is followed by a full debrief of the mission to your insurance company.
Bonding - If one of your incisors gets chipped, the dentist can tint a resin to match the shade of your tooth, affix it, and buff it down. In some posh West L.A. suburbs, there are dentists who will perform this same procedure on a chipped Tostito, so that the Brentwood kids can have cosmetically perfect snacks in their lunchboxes.
Root canal - The root canal, along with giving birth, passing a kidney stone, and being kicked in the balls, is considered one of the four quintessentially painful experiences that the human body may endure. As someone who has been through all four in the same week, I'd take root canals ALL DAY.
With warmest regards,
Zach
