Invalidate Me, I Beseech You
I know how people have a tendency to listen to your tale of woe and then immediately try to one-up you, and this is what I want to happen right now.
$456.08. After insurance.
That was the bill at the dentist just a few moments ago, following a pretty darn unpleasant couple hours of poking and scraping and sawing in my mouth. This tidy sum, four-fifty-six oh-eight, amounts to precisely one porcelain-over-metal crown, to replace one of my lower molars which the dentist said Had To Go. The crown, for reference, is about the size of your pinky fingernail.
The crown was installed over a tooth base that had already been relieved of its nerve content, in an equally unpleasant procedure you may remember from a few weeks ago. Remember that, the root canal? With the picture of me sporting a big rubber splattershield and bizarro pins inserted in the nerve cavities?
Yeah: $437.50. After insurance.
So I'm standing there in front of the receptionist at my dental office, stupidly running through in my mind all the various and delightful things I'd rather spend nine hundred dollars on besides having my lower left molar replaced with an exact replica.
A fence for my dog Vince. A new bathtub for my bathroom. Diamond earrings for Penelope. A dent in a student loan. Kick-ass speakers my friend Simon has for sale. A round-trip flight to Italy. A garage door opener. A gift to a stranger.
I recognized this feeling, in that moment - a feeling I personally witnessed just a few days ago. It was during a football game. My friend Matt - the one who rammed the television, that champ of a fella - had three chances to intercept passes thrown by my team's quarterback, but he dropped all three. As his opponent, I was glad they were just blocked passes and not touchdowns for the other team, but man I felt sorry for Matt after he dropped them.
He stomped and kicked, and yelled ungentlemanly words to no one in particular. It's frustrating, you know? Realizing what could have been, but now cannot be... and hating the task of living with the outcome. Disappointment and futility all in one.
But there are worse things, I know. So let's hear 'em!
You tell me a less fun way to spend nearly a thousand bucks, and I'll nod my head solemnly and sympathize with your plight. And I'll thank you, from the bottom of my barren nerve cavity, for putting my dumb little problems in perspective.
Fire away.
8 comments:
you could spend 900 bucks (not covered by insu.)for a psych eval, you take stupid tests for six hours and they tell you your mother didn't nuture you as a child.
Yes, but at least the recliners are more comfy.
I have nothing. I feel your pain. Trust me. Or, at least I FELT your pain. Earlier this year. During the never-ending summer of Dental Misery.
xo Wee
muffler work for my car last summer? that was over $900. But it was not in my mouth.
- amanda
How about the G I spent because I drove my one car into my other car. That was a waste of 1000 one-dollar bills!
Hee hee, I forgot about that. I hope my dental story is as amusing to you as your vehicular hijinks are to me.
Paying $900 to get your tooth fixed, root canal and cap. Then a year later having to have it pulled because the dentist screwed up and the tooth in now infected. One side of your mouth is swelled up to the size of a baseball and the only relief in sight is to have the expensive tooth pulled, and paying again to have that done.
Oh, MAN. I feel for you, whoever you are.
Let's see: ...silver lining... silver lining...
Nope; I got nothing.
Well, there is the fact that the next round of procedures won't hurt very much, since you already had the root canal...
But still.
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