Am I Drooling?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been threatened. My brother obviously doesn’t appreciate me telling stories of Sparky and his breast pump and has threatened to tell unbecoming stories about my youth. So, in order to save face, I shall beat him to the punch. The following is my rendition of my wisdom tooth extraction experience. Enjoy my pain.

Those of you whom have had your wisdom teeth pulled know that it is not a fun experience. I spent months in pain trying to convince myself that the 4 HUGE teeth in the back of my jaw would eventually straighten out and stop hurting. Wrong! My dentist took x-rays and informed me that my wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and would have to be pulled because, are you ready for this, MY mouth wasn’t big enough. I thought my mother was going to wet herself when she heard his words. Anyway, they scheduled me for oral surgery and I began to mentally prepare myself.

On the day of my appointment, I was pretty nervous. They gave me ½ a valium in the waiting room to calm me down. When they called my name, I was feeling fairly confident that I would not die and that I could possibly be interested in a valium addiction. I went back to the “operating” room and they explained the procedure. They were going to give me liquid valium to put me to sleep. YIPPEEE! Then they were going to extract my four wisdom teeth (code for rip them out of my head). After that, I would wake up in “recovery” and be sent home with a prescription for pain and instructions on how to care for my mouth. Sounds simple enough, bring on the valium!

They administered the anesthesia (code for good drugs) and told me to count backwards from 100. I counted, “100, 9…9” that was it. I assume that they then cut my wisdom teeth out – I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, when I woke up, it turned out that “recovery” was a couch next to the back door, which is also where you exited the building. As it turns out, drunk people with swollen faces and bloody drool wandering through the waiting room isn’t very comforting to the other patients. So, my mother escorts (drags) me out the back door and puts me in the car. She gathers my prescription and my instructions and we were on our way.

Her intention was to take me home, put me in bed and go to Walgreens to pick up my prescription. My intention was to tag along with her and embarrass the crap out of her. As soon as we pulled out of the dentist’s parking lot, she starts reading the care instructions. #1 – leave packing in place for at least 4 hours. As she read, I began to remove the wads of gauze they had packed my jaws with because it was “sucking up my spit”. I am one of those people that can’t stand to even touch a dry paper towel to my tongue (I gag just typing this) so you can imagine what 11 feet of gauze was doing to me. Mother made me put the packing back in because “that’s what the instructions say”. Man, sometimes she really irritated me.

So, she then tells me her plan to take me home, I refuse. She tries to explain how much better it would be, I could lay down and get some rest, blah, blah, blah. Nope – I wanted to stay with her and I wasn’t taking no for an answer. We arrive at Walgreens and I stumble along beside my mother trying to carry on a drunken conversation while my jaws were packed with gauze. Ironically, my mother never responded to me. In fact, she seemed to be walking faster as if trying to get away from me. We get inside and she takes me to the magazine aisle and tells me to stand there and read while she gets my drugs.

I positioned myself about ¾ of an inch from the magazine rack and removed my gauze. I placed each bloody wad neatly along the edge of the rack and tried to focus on the cover of the latest issue of Hairstyles for African Americans – don’t ask it was the first thing I saw. Now remember, I’ve just had oral surgery and my entire face is swollen and numb. I looked down the aisle towards the pharmacy to “check on” Mother. She happened to be looking at me at that time so I felt inclined to ask her, in my loudest whisper (yeah, right), “AM I DROOLING?!?!?” She just looked at me like she didn’t know who I was so I repeated, a little louder this time, “AM I DROOLING?!?!”

About that time, the pharmacist called my name; she grabbed my drugs and headed my way. Meanwhile, I’d located a misplaced cassette tape holder mixed in with the magazines. It dawned on me that we needed a cassette tape holder and this one had to be purchased. I began explaining this to my mother before she reached me on the aisle, again in my delicate whisper. She finally reached me and snatched the cassette tape holder out of my hand, raked the bloody gauze off the rack into her pocket and headed to the check-out. We purchased the tape holder, my drugs and a copy of Hairstyles for African Americans I had smuggled to the register. We got in the car and went straight home.

For the next 3 days I slept. When I finally came out of my coma, my mother had a ball recounting how I had wandered around Walgreens with bloody drool all over my face looking like a drunken sow. She relished in telling each and every one of my friends how I was yelling “AM I DROOLING” at the top of my lungs in the middle of Walgreens. She took great joy in showing everyone my new cassette tape holder and the reading material I’d chosen while laughing her butt off about how retarded I looked – did I mention I was 18 years old when this occurred? I’m so grateful that I have the kind of mother that, in my hour of need, would ignore me in public and take pride in my humiliation. It is to her I owe my ability to laugh at the less fortunate and find humor in the pain of others. Thank you Mother, for instilling in me the kind of values I will need as a parent to laugh at my own children and embarrass them when the opportunity arises. You’re the best.