I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled. I wasn't going to bother, since they never caused me any pain, but apparently they decided that since I wasn't going to pull them, they were going to rot themselves away. Once they started forming cavities to carry out their evil plot, the dentist said they needed to go. What I wasn't aware of until the oral surgeon told me, is that wisdom teeth should be pulled while you're young - "Not that you're old!" - he kept interjecting unnecessarily. But the older you get, the harder they are to remove.
He was correct, not only because of my age, but also because I have a disproportionately teeny tiny head, with a corresponding teeny tiny mouth. It was difficult for him to move the instruments around, and the will of my teeth to stay in my head had him going back and forth between many different instruments. Everyone understands that tooth extraction is not a pleasant process, but for me it wasn't the pressure on my jaw, or the disconcerting loud cracks you hear as the tooth is ripped from your skull, it was the excessive stretching of my lips. I try to be a good patient, really, but it was too much to have my head facing one direction, and have my lips pulled in the opposite direction. I kept turning my head to follow my lips, which wasn't helping. And all the while, the surgeon cursed and muttered about how small my mouth is, then cursed some more. He even ended up using a pediatric tool at one point. Good call - I've been begging my dentist to use pediatric x-ray film for years; no dice.
With my mouth full of gauze and pliers and drills and circular saws and hammer and chisel (well that's what it felt like), I didn't get to complain back at the surgeon that maybe his hands were just too big. So now I'm thinking that the world of oral surgery could use more people like me, with smaller hands, and an understanding of people with small mouths. I wish I'd had this revelation when I was younger - "Not that you're old!" I mentally hear the oral surgeon interject - because at this point, I'm not sure I'm capable of enduring the many years of school and training to become an oral surgeon. I do, however, know I'm capable of cursing like one.
