Chompers

So I’ve got a tooth that’s gotta come out. A root canal was done on it years ago and now it’s gotta get replaced. Thank God it’s in the back where no one would actually notice that it’s missing, but I still want to replace it with an implant… which is kind of exciting actually, I’ve never had anything implanted in my body before!

Unless you count the time that hairy bastard I’d picked up at a bar put his…

ahem

Anyway, it costs a small fortune to get a tooth implant, did you know that? Supposedly, it’s a whole process: They have to harvest tissue from a cadaver and stick it in the hole where the tooth once was, then wait a few months for it to take. After that, they do some drilling, stick in a steel post, and top it off by screwing on a new tooth. You know, this sounds disgusting. Well, I’ve done disgusting things before so what’s one more, right hairy bastard?

All told, it comes out to about $5,000, and that’s if you want a competent dentist. If you don’t care, well then, you could probably find someone for about half that and take your chances, but that’s still $2500 bucks… for one tooth! Now I can just get the tooth extracted and leave the hole, but besides the fact that I’d be feeling like a damn hillbilly from the hills of Tennessee, they charge for that too!

People from Tennessee: DO NOT EMAIL ME.

So yeah, the dentist actually charges you to take a tooth out, which I think is ludicrous! I mean, they’re taking the damn tooth and leaving me with nothing, that’s hardly something they should charge me for. They’re taking the goddamn tooth, don’t you think they should pay me?

Jesus, I hope they wouldn’t reuse it on someone.

On top of all that, the dentist doesn’t even take payments, I’d have to pay all at once since I don’t have insurance. So I asked him if his office ever does any charity work, you know, like Doctors Without Borders, except maybe it’s called Dentists with Toothless Patients Against Corporate American Healthcare. The answer was no, in case you actually needed me to qualify it.

The insurance companies essentially say, “Well yeah, looks like you have to have this tooth taken out but we’re not going to pay to replace it because you have, like, 31 other teeth already, so you have plenty. Even if you only had 16 teeth we still wouldn’t pay to replace any missing ones because it’s considered cosmetic.”

Cosmetic… uh huh.

Never mind the fact that no one would want to hire a toothless person for… well, just about anything. Unless they wanted you to work someplace you wouldn’t be seen, like in a morgue. I guess I could make extra money harvesting cadaver gums…

But I would be completely undateable, no one wants someone with no teeth! Well, unless I wanted to go out with another toothless sucker… and I’d have to call him my Gummy Bear! Never mind the fact that humans need teeth to chew food to stay alive unless you wanna suck your dinner through a goddamn straw! In fact, the only good thing about the possibility of being toothless, is that I would never have to deal with another moron dentist again! Well, that and the blow job thing with my new honey, Gummy Bear.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have something stuck between my teeth.