My Dental Hygienist Just Tried to Kill Me!

Trust me, I know how this is gonna sound.

Everybody is afraid of going to the dentist. It's not a pleasant experience for any of us. But this was different.

I'm already trying to convince myself it didn't really happen like it did, trying to tell myself it isn't possible. That I fell asleep in the dentist's chair and what I remember was just a horrible waking nightmare.

But no. It happened. And I have to get the details down while they're still fresh in my mind. Think of this as an interactive diary. Or a police exhibit.

"Have a seat, right here," the dental hygienist said with a friendly, perfect smile. Her teeth were small and sparkling white.

After I sat down in the dentist's chair, she began to reposition it, tilting my head back so she could see what she was doing.

The chair kept reclining further and further, beyond what I thought would be its limitations. Eventually it stopped and I looked up at the ceiling tiles, sweat dripping down the sides of my face. Glancing down nervously I saw my feet were high up in the air, my head down near the floor. Blood was rushing down to my brain by force of gravity and I found myself feeling instantly uncomfortable, struggling slightly to breathe.

She wasn't very tall, and I'm quite a big guy, so I figured she needed the chair positioned differently than the dentist when he had done his checkup. I'd never been to see this particular hygienist before but she was already striking me as a bit peculiar.

"How's that feel?" She asked, getting her instruments ready.

I hesitated, but figured I'd better say something before she started. The uncomfortable feeling would surely only get worse if I didn't. I opened my mouth to speak and she took that for consent and jammed a rubber-gloved fist inside and began poking around, scraping my teeth and making disgusted-sounding noises.

“You really need to brush better,” she said, her voice sounding increasingly angry. “This is unacceptable.”

With each syllable she spoke, she emphasized the word with a brutal scratch on my teeth, poking painfully into my gums. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.

My heart started pounding faster and I felt woozy already from being nearly upside-down, but I figured I'd have to wait until she stopped for a moment, then I'd ask her to change the chair's position. Her personality was something beyond repair, but at least I could ask her to fix that aspect of this horrible experience.

Then she pulled out the water pick.

With one hand still inside my mouth, prying it open with a rubber glove, she began to spray a concentrated jet of water into my mouth, ostensibly to clean my teeth. But I could see a glimmer of something else in her eyes. She was enjoying this.

The water ran down the back of my throat and I began to sputter and gag, but still she didn't stop. The water tasted funny, vaguely medicinal.

I felt like I was being water-boarded against my will, but something prevented me from moving. Maybe it was a fear of being different, going against the societal norms, being labelled as difficult or strange. The superego, I suppose it's called.

That part of me still felt like it was important that this was just a normal dental hygiene appointment. Sure, this woman seemed sadistic and was enjoying watching me suffer a little too much, but she was a licensed dental hygiene expert. I was probably just being paranoid. It had been a while since I had done this, after all.

My hands gripped the seat’s armrests tightly and I struggled to maintain my composure, my breathing coming faster and faster, my heart playing a staccato beat against my ribs.

“Oh, this one’s not coming clean,” she said suddenly, shaking her head. “We’ll have to extract it.”

I jumped, suddenly completely terrified. That was definitely not within her job description. There was something really wrong with this woman. My instincts had been right all along.

“Uh, no thanks. The dentist just looked, he did an X-RAY and everything. He said they were all fine.”

“He’s getting old. Needs to have his head examined. Even his teeth are starting to turn yellow. Getting full of holes. Don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up. I'll get you ALL fixed up...”

She pulled out a pair of rusty-looking pliers from a nearby drawer, coming at my face with startling speed.

I tried to sit up, but she pushed me back down with a strong hand, gravity assisting her efforts. From the upside-down position I had found myself in, I had no leverage.

Realizing I couldn’t move from the chair, I held up my hands to fight her. But they began to feel heavy and drooped down slowly to my sides, reminding me of the UFO ride at the fair - The Graviton - where you'd get flattened up against the sides by the centrifugal force, feeling heavier and heavier. That was how it felt. My eyelids were feeling heavy too.

My thoughts went back to her cleaning my mouth, the medicinal taste of the...

The water pick! There was something in the water pick!

“Good,” she said, smiling with her pearly-white teeth showing. “Sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be all better.”

When I woke up, I was missing all my teeth. My mouth was full of blood and the dentist’s office was dark and empty.

At least she let me live. I’m not sure what she did with everyone else in the place. I went straight home, afraid to check the other rooms.

I can’t imagine they’d let her get away with what she did in broad daylight. I think she went on a killing spree in that place. That would certainly explain the bloody footprints in the hallways and the puddles of vital fluids seeping out from behind each office door.

The police will be here any minute, and I’ll have to explain to them what happened. At least I’ve got it all written down here.

And I have proof. My bloody, empty mouth will need dentures, and I’m still in my thirties. I guess she saw imperfections in all of them, and decided they needed to be extracted.

That crazy bitch is still out there somewhere with my teeth, and I want them back.

But hey, at least I’ve always liked smoothies.

TCC