next time, somebody tell me

I am slightly obsessive about my teeth for two reasons. One, I had braces for five years. Two, I hate the dentist. So I brush and floss and rinse and spit and cross my fingers and wonder if there's a dentist somewhere around here who will put me under the next time I need a filling, because the last time, we discovered that Novacaine doesn't work on me. And by "we," I mean I screamed and tried to get away and the dentist laughed and continued drilling into my head. There is something vaguely serial-killer about that, I think.

So usually after I eat, I check my teeth just to make sure there's nothing stuck. There almost never is, but I do it anyway. Yesterday, I was about to inspect my choppers when someone walked into the bathroom. Not wanting to look like a fool with my face all up in the mirror, I washed my hands and left. I probably smiled at whoever it was, too. She was the first person who should have said something.

I went on with my day, had a meeting of sorts with a supervisor (a particularly fun time in the day when you're pulled into a darkened room and told everything that you've done wrong, which is also printed out in list form for your personal enjoyment -- it seems like there should be spankings, too, but so far, no luck) and talked to various people. I'm sure I smiled at every one of them.

I got home and watched some tv with Mom. I had a couple drinks. I went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror, and there, framing my two front teeth like two very tiny but precisely placed bookmarks, were the biggest fucking pieces of pepper I've ever seen in my life. I suspect they stowed away in my honey mustard dipping sauce I had with my Wendy's deliciousness for dinner. (By the way, that sauce should be included in the Bill of Rights. No American should be forced to eat fries without honey mustard.) Either that or they were in the salad dressing. Maybe it was a mix-and-match kind of thing, a United Nations of fast-food condiments joining forces in my mouth with the common goal of making me look like a goober.

Really, I should be proud.