So I come back from IIT to enjoy home-cooked meals and, as is very often the case, nature conspires against me and urges one of my wisdom teeth to start picking at my gums in an attempt to come out. The concerned tooth solemnly agrees. And I've been in pain for three days now. Pain is hallucinogenic. It gives you a high. I've been more high because of this excruciating pain than I've ever been on alcohol (And I've drunk loads of alcohol at times.) (This is the kind of high you don't want to have when home.) (This is probably why a certain Mr. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch observed what he did although I think THAT would be taking it a bit too far.) And then I have to take pain-killers to quell my pain. Pain killers give you a high as well. (That's probably why a lot of drugs people get addicted to pain-killers.) You get a feeling you can hit yourself hard after taking a pain-killer because you think you won't feel it. You do. I tried it. Not once, but twice.
On the topic of toothache, this one's made me believe that "a pain in the tooth" would be far more appropriate an expression than "a pain in the ass" when it comes to describing unpleasurable people, experiences and things in general. I say that having never experienced "a pain in the ass" per se, but this pain in the tooth makes me believe there could be nothing worse. Ogden Nash wrote a poem about visiting the dentist (it lends its title to this post) and called it one of the most horrifying experiences he had had (which implies, it is worse than having a toothache.) I went to a dentist yesterday and found that it wasn't as bad. The guy was nice and friendly. And I was out in two minutes with a prescription and a hope of the tooth not hurting anymore. Hope hurts. So does my tooth. Still.
