I Wanna Be Sedated

While tooling around in Adams County yesterday, on our way to the American leg of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Gettysburg (yes, this is my life-- welcome, and, don't forget: if you're getting your jollies by reading about it: you're gay, too) my wife and I observed a billboard that caught our interest.

It featured a middle-aged blonde, woman. Were this billboard in Philadelphia, on I-76, perhaps, she might have been dressed to the nines, preparing to see a "Broadway at the Academy" show, clutching a clutch, checking herself out in the mirror, adjusting a glittering earring, mayhaps.

As we were in Adams County, however, this woman was sitting in a dentist's chair, draped in a green paper bib and her head was tilted back, her mouth agape, and her eyes were unsettlingly half-closed. She looked drunk and/or about to be penetrated by someone who had doctored her drink at the corner dental bar. From the righthand side of the billboard, an arm entered the picture, covered in the dentalicious whiteness of the labcoat, and the hand attached to this arm held some sort of cringeworthy metal tool.

Above this charming picture read the legend, "While You're Chillin', We're Drillin'"

Well, actually, it read "While Your Chillin', We're Drillin'" but who am I, the Detective-Sergeant of the Grammar Police?

Anyway, it was an ad for, say it with me now, "Sedation Dentistry." Now, as I understand this particular denticular development, sedation dentistry refers to the act of lightly sedating Nervous Nellie patients for routine procedures like, you know, cleanings.

Now, I have my thoughts about the potential societal ills that could develop from treating adults as though they were children, unable to handle the admitted torture of a 35-minute stint in a dentist's chair, getting the bejesus scraped off of your (you're???) enamel, but I'm going to forsake that particular rant today, because, really, I think it's kind of a cool idea, on its face. If I ever went to the dentist again, I would probably opt for some schlockface who engaged in the practice of sedation dentistry. Why? Can't I take the pain and discomfort of the scraping?

Sure I can. Me a big boy!

The sedation would come in mighty handy for me, though, as it would take small-talk with the hygienist out of the equation, and that is worth its (it's????) weight in gold. Small-talk drives me up the fucking wall. I have no patience for it, and no talent for it, and absolutely no interest in it. And I'm pretty sure people can tell. The pained smile that befouls my face (in the dentist's chair, especially), the contorted, uncomfortable body language, the involuntary eye-rolling and the finger-flicking against the palm of my other hand. Every part of my body is saying "go away" while I struggle through a conversation about the weather or about some baseball game I did not watch featuring at least one team I have never heard of.

Give me sedation dentistry, or give me death.

Dental Hygienist: "So, where did you go to college?"

Sedated Me: "Ummmggggnnngghhhhh....."

Dental Hygienist: "So, what do you do?"

Sedated Me: "Gggnnnnnfdsnnnnnssshhhhhhhh......"

Dental Hygienist: "Just let me know if this hurts, okay?"

Sedated Me: "Fuuuuuccchhhhhnhhhh eeeeyyyyyyyyyyewwwwww....."

So in favor am I of sedation dentistry, I think that mild-to-moderate sedation ought to be expanded in scope to allay our fears, anxieties, discomfort and general dislike of other situations. Brainstorm with me, dear-- let's make neuro thunder and lightning together:

SEDATION FIRST DATES

I haven't had a first date in a long time, but it wasn't so long ago that I don't vividly recall the shameful awkwardness, the forced, stilted conversation, the frequent pauses and watch-checks, the unnecessary trips to the bathroom, the underarm moistness, the fevered quest for mutually agreeable, socially acceptable discussion topics, the painful recounting of your three humorous anecdotes. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if one (or BOTH!) participants in a first date were sedated? If waiters could go through a rudimentary training and certification in sedation, you could opt to have those waiters as your servers. Concierges would greet you by asking, “Sedation section?” and it would be filled with quasi-slumped over couples, drooling onto plastic-covered table-cloths, waiters dropping pieces of chicken and tortellini when the patrons are breathing in the right direction. Sedation would revolutionize dating, it would be the single biggest romantic innovation since the female condom and J-Date.

SEDATION FIRST AWKWARD SEX

You know how awkward it is having sex with someone for the first time? Well, with Sedation Sex, you can…. Oh, wait—this is like rape, isn’t it? Um… nevermind.

SEDATION BAR/BAT MITZVAH

How awesome would it be if you could request sedation prior to attending some pimply kid’s Bar Mitzvah? Really, Bar Mitzvahs are pretty painful events for everyone involved—the rabbi who has to pretend he likes/knows the kid in question, the family who is mentally totaling up the incredible tab for this ridiculous event, the Bar Mitzvah boy himself who is now considered a man before he’s discovered masturbation, the elderly people—because elderly people are always in pain—and the hip, young distant relatives and friends who are there out of some sort of obligation and had to spend money they don’t have on a Cross pen for this lousy, kinky-haired little shit who’s never used a pen in his life anyway. Bar/Bat Mitzvahs would fucking rock if everyone were sedated. Especially the cantor. Can you sing in Hebrew while you’re sedated? Only one way to find out.

SEDATION “THE TODAY SHOW”

I have a friend who TiVos “The Today Show” and then watches it late at night while drinking alcohol. To me, this is kind of like what watching “The Today Show” under sedation might be like. She claims that it’s a lot funnier and, sometimes, even more poignant, at 11pm after a drink or two.

SEDATION TALKING TO A COLLEGE FRESHMAN

If it’s been a while since you’ve tried having a conversation with a college freshman, you might not understand why I’m suggesting sedation is not only recommended, but essential. College freshman are the most arrogant, annoying, obnoxious, self-centered, newly-geniused motherfuckers God ever created, yes, even more than William F. Buckley. Trust me, if you ever need to converse with a college freshman for a period of time longer than three-and-a-half minutes, you’re going to be running for that fucking ether. Save some for me, too.