There's a clot in your sink

"You haff a lot uff tartar," she said, as she scraped my teeth with something sharp and unyielding.

I'd already figured that out. It was taking an awfully long time for the hygenist to clean my teeth. At first, I thought my teeth were being sprayed by a high-intensity beam of water -- sort of like power-washing your siding. Certainly, the tube in my mouth was sucking a lot of fluids out. Then I realized the tool she was using had not tube attached to the handle. The pointy feeling in my gums was due entirely to a pointy object poking around in there. Knowing this made it hurt more. Water never hurts as bad as metal, even if it's the exact same pain.

"It us just pressure," she said when I flinched. "No pain." Maybe it was a painful pressure.

And man, was it taking a long while to get down to my teeth under the archaeological layers of cheesesteak and doughnut that had evaded my brushing. I was waiting for her to pull a jackhammer from a sanitary sealed plastic pouch.

Eventually, I decided to spit.

I have never spit anything with such a deep red color in my life. Just a torrent of blood. I drank from the cup, and the next spit got pink -- or rather, it was pinkish with floating blobs of red suspended in it. I tried to make them swirl down the sink, but one of the globs didn't make it past the drain screen. I assume these were platelets.

One thing I knew: I wasn't about to spit again until it was completely done. No sense grossing myself out twice.

Eventually, my teeth cleaning was done, and I thanked my hygenist for doing such a thorough job. She stressed that regular six-month visits would make things go a lot more smoothly. She's right, of course. Hopefully the nightmares will have stopped by then.

Rob