Whippit, Baby

My new dentist is an elegant, glamorous Chinese woman who looks like she’s about 22. Multiple fountains burble and ozonate the office, and the décor, with its use of soothing beige raw silk, is much more suggestive of a spa than a dentist's office. Opera arias plays softly over the loudspeaker and Vogue is on the waiting room tables. The maternal but stylish dental hygenists soothingly press their soft bosom into your head while they're cleaning scraping your teeth. Aside from all the aesthetic beauty of her office, my principal reason for selecting my new dentist is her guaranteed ‘anxiety free’ method of dentistry, i.e., lots and lots of nitrous, even for the most basic and minor of procedures.

The other day I had to get a filling replaced and a deep cleaning. As I was greedily and frantically sucking the nitrous like a starved piglet, mindful not to let my eyes roll back in my head lest I be cut off, I noticed the piped music changed from classical to Christmas music. The song Feliz Navidad began to agitateme and increase my anxiety levels, but the next song, “Christmas, Christmas” by Alvin and the Chipmunks, horrifying under the best of circumstances, was absolutely intolerable loaded on nitrous. I stopped the procedure and asked for headphones. Most of the CD selection consisted of Celine Dion, Bette Midler and Frank Sinatra, so the best I could find was Natalie Merchant's Tiger Lilly. Although I’ve never been a particular fan of hers, as I lay back and relaxed, trying go to my special place, I had thoughts like,
"These lyrics are both beautiful and...profound. I...am...so...getting...this...CD.”

Anyway, nitrous definitely made a potentially traumatic experience rather beautiful, although after I have nitrous I always feel like I shaved a couple of IQ points off for a couple of days. Doctors are using nitrous oxide on children in emergency rooms to help reduce pain and anxiety while they undergo treatment. While on laughing gas, children often even giggle while getting bones set.