A lot has been happening lately in my life, and I'm in a great mood, so I must write down all of it. To start off, I had my wisdom teeth taken out last week. I'd been putting off this surgery for months because I simply didn't understand what the fuss was about. Tell me again, I remember saying to my dentist, why I have these teeth in the first place if they only exist for people like you to take them out. And again, I remember, he explained. Wisdom teeth are dead weight in our mouths. They are relics of an older time, when we needed them to chew tougher food, before we discovered fire. You don't need them anymore, he told me, and if you leave them in long enough, and they will eventually begin to hurt you.
I'm obsessed with being the best patient when I'm at the doctor's, the best passenger in line for security check, the best customer in the checkout lane at the grocery store. I don't know why. On the way to my surgery, I imagined my dentist going home to his wife telling her what a model I was for wisdom tooth extractions, how my teeth obligingly slid right out, because they weren't even supposed to be there in the first place. A pleasant Friday in the life of a dentist overall, I thought, sliding into my seat, clasping my hands as he lowered me down. Open wide, he said, as wide as you can, and I opened wide, as wide as I could. Push your tongue to the side, he said, and I did. Relax, he told me, and I did. You can close your eyes, he told me, but I kept them open the whole time, searching his own for any sign that something had gone horribly wrong. I imagined him drilling away my enamel all the way down to the nerve, right through the flesh of my cheek. I thought about what I'd do if he extracted the wrong tooth, chipped a precious canine perhaps. I wondered if the profuse apologies would be enough for me, if suing for dental malpractice would be worth it. I imagined him telling the nurse that I had abnormally large wisdom teeth. That part, I remembered later, wasn't my imagination. That actually happened. But he kept going, asking me if I was okay as he attacked my molars with practiced efficiency, wrenching tooth after tooth out of my swollen mouth. And again, as he staunched the bleeding in my mouth, and again, as he sutured the holes in my gums, and again, when he noticed my nails digging semicircles into my palms. And each time, I nodded vigorously, yes, yes of course I was okay, as cheerfully as I could with a dental mirror jammed underneath my tongue. You’re okay, he said when it was over, peering down at me as he wiped my blood off his hands. I looked up at him, and I imagined what he saw. My mouth bloated and bloody, face contorted, its scars thrown into harsh relief under his lamp, but underneath them, a perfect set of teeth. And I had no choice but to believe him.
It's been a week now, and I still can't eat croutons, so of course that's all I want to eat. I fantasize about devouring a caesar salad absolutely laden with croutons which I then proceed to crush with my new teeth. There is levity in my heart and a spring in my step, and life just feels good. Everyone says that it's this freakishly warm winter, it's the early spring, it's the sun, it’s march, it's my hormones, but I keep my giant teeth on my bedside table, and I look at them every night before I fall asleep, and every morning before I stumble on to the bathroom, and I know the truth.