"this will make a great blog entry"

Those are the words that spun through my mind as I sat in the dentist chair today, inhaling as much nitrous oxide as I could draw through my nose in a single breath... although now, several hours later I can not even vaguely remember what it was that would have made such a compelling blog entry... not that its going to stop me from rambling on about the incident anyway.

One thing I find interesting about nitrous oxide is that it isn't used in place of anything at the dentist, but simply a means to enhance the relaxation factor of a patient.

Today, as the apparatus was strapped over my nose my first thought was that I was doing something horribly wrong and possibly illegal. It may sound silly but I felt incredibly guilty. Was I pulling one over on my dental professionals? What ever went down I could not let on that I was enjoying it. By "enjoying it" I mean the gas, not the visit to the chair.

About 5 minutes after "the gas" had started flowing I could feel my finger tips getting tingly and I kept noticing how tense I was in my neck. I would let it droop a little more into the chair before realizing I was still too tense and needed to relax some more. After ten minutes I couldn't have been settled any deeper into that chair if I had been traveling at 800 g's through space and time. And that was when my cover was nearly blown.

The radio playing in the office started blasting that Michael Jackson song from so long ago, you know the one about how "it don't matter if you're black or white" and I started laughing out loud. I panicked thinking that I was about to lose my gas privileges but covered it nicely by admitting (quite truthfully for that matter) that I always laugh when I hear that song.

And no, it's not because I'm a racist who is misguided enough to believe it actually does matter what color you are. That is preposterous. I pretty much laugh at any song where Michael Jackson is belting out the lyrics... except for maybe ABC, cause that song rules and anyone who doesn't think so is a bitch.

But by then I didn't care about anything because I was drifting on clouds imaging what a great blog entry this was going to make. I was at the dentist for a cleaning. A deep cleaning, which I soon discovered is far less pleasant than the cleanings of my youth which were by far the least traumatic of all dental appointments. Imagine my surprise when I walked away feeling like I'd been punched in the side of the face.

First I got numbed up locally before the dentist came in to really deaden my face. When the good Doctor arrived I was reminded of the scene from Planet Terror where the anesthesiologist talks about her three little friends in the form of three different colors of needles.

While he (the dentist that is) was getting me all numbed up I kept thinking I absolutely had to make some joke about how nice it would be to get all numbed up while standing in line at the DMV... God, I'm glad I didn't actually make that joke. Although it would be nice to get some sort of shot when you get your number that reads 8,326 and the loudspeaker announces "now serving number 2!"

But I digress.

After a while I also noticed how slowly my thoughts were rolling through my head. They were coming out at the speed of a dot-matrix printout. I remember thinking to myself at one point "wow, my thoughts are really slow" and before that entire string of words completed itself inside my brain, someone had walked into the room where I was having my work done and carried out a fairly lengthy conversation with the hygienist that was working on my teeth. It was as if I was stuck in the slow lane of the fourth dimension.

Perhaps this blog entry blows chunks but at least I didn't blog about blowing chunks... although I suppose I can make no promises for the future except that you probably know I won't ever do it.

Many of you may be aware I have a weak stomach and despite the fact that I have several entertaining stories about worshiping the porcelain god, the thought of even relating them makes me want to vomit... excuse me!