As Much Fun as a Root Canal

After a couple weeks of pain, which moved around the entirety of my mouth and varied in intensity from slighly annoying to crying at 3 a.m., I finally made it into a dentist and then an endodontist. No longer am I a root canal virgin. This week, I endured the first of two...out-of-pocket. No one becomes a vet tech for the insurance benefits, believe me. Or for the paycheck.

Having asked everyone in my acquaintence whether they'd had one, and how bad it was, I entered the endodontist's office only somewhat anxious. It was fast. Exactly one hour after the start, I found myself back in the car, pulling out of the parking lot with a numb mouth and a heavy sigh. It really wasn't bad, except for a couple seconds...and having to write so many digits on a check. Apparently, some people, once in a while, sport a "hot tooth." That's one that doesn't get blocked completely by the novocaine as it should. Happens once a month or so, they said. Lucky me...Miss July. There was a second when I felt the drill inside my tooth. It was as though someone dropped an atomic bomb in my jaw. Fat Man and Little Boy both. At once. I held still, but the physical response was intense...heart racing, muscles quaking, throat whimpering and eyes flooding. All at once I was 4 years old and I needed my mommy. Thankfully after a couple minutes and a couple more blocks, I felt nothing. And it was shortly done, after a whole lot of unsettling shoving of implements up my face.

It was not pleasant.

But you know what was more torturous than the root canal itself?

There I was, mouth open, laying back, rubber dam clamped in place over the victim tooth and covering my gaping maw....unable to speak. Gagged, essentially.
And there sat my friendly, nice endodontist and her nurse, one on each side...handing things and poking things and handing things back. And they were chatting up a storm, right over my head about how much "fun" my job must be. They'd asked me where I worked in that getting-to-know-you, pre-shoving-things-in-your-mouth phase of the appointment. I told them. Then, after the panic of that pain moment, the needles and the drilling....just wanting it to be over...they then started talking about how great it must be, how much fun, how much the nurse would probably love to have my job. What torture to be unable to clarify. To be unable to garble..."Euthanasia! Neglect! Cruelty! Cat Hoardings! Boomerang Adoptions! URI! Short-staffing! Stupidity! Abandonment!"

Lord. Isn't that terrible, to be at that point (which I have been for quite a while now), to be SO hot to rain on people's parade when they surmise that sheltering... that horribly underpaid and emotionally traumatic animal welfare work, is all about playing with puppies and kittens all day? Selfish, perhaps....to resent the "animal loving" public for not having to see what is in my face Monday through Friday and even in my dreams Saturday and Sunday. I can't tolerate people having the wrong idea either way...and I am not quite sure which is worse, over a tray of cheese and crackers at a party..."What do you do?"..."I work at the SPCA."
a.) "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!! (pitch always rising at end, images of frolicking kittens in person's head) That must be SOOOO much fun!!!"
b.) "Ohhhhh. That sucks. Do you have to....you know...put them to...sleep?"(person edging away as if I am wearing a tattered executioner's hood right then)
I just can't let people keep either view, and I get pretty defensive either way.*
Neither is right. Except...also, both are right.
One is demeaning and one is insulting.
It's an important conversation.

Which can't be had in the middle of a root canal.

Mind you...generally, I don't bring it up. If it comes up, and I can't skirt around it, then I might get into it. My preference, out of context, is to avoid the topic of what I do alltogether. I'm no soapboxer...do not think so for a minute. Had I not gone to the root canal after work, wearing my logoed scrubs and badge, perhaps it all could've been avoided.

It's just been a long, hard week, I suppose.


*PSA: please, whatever you do, when you are out some sunny Saturday running errands and decide to swing by your local shelter or pound to engage in indiscriminate, dirty fingerpokery into each and every kitten cage, do NOT go up to any staff members and say the following:
"I could never do what you do! I love animals too much!!"
You are trying to sound friendly and whatever, and we can totally dig that...thanks. really. But that statement is the biggest, steel-toed kick in the nuts to all of us who show up day after day like the gluttons for punishment we are. No offense, but you with your pampered pets and Animal Planet habit (god bless you, seriously...there should be more people like you, and then maybe there would be less need for people like us) don't have the same concept of "love." To "do what we do" is for the sort of love that chews you up and spits you out...that takes you higher than you will ever be in your life...and that takes you to rock bottom more often than most people have to endure. Thanks for the sentiment....but if you get a shelter staffer or ACO on the wrong day with that statement, you may be sorry. Instead, a sincere "I appreciate what you are doing for the community...it must be so hard sometimes. Hey...who's your favorite dog/cat here right now?" will make someone's day.

Also, try to refrain from the other standby insensitive but well-meaning remark: "I couldn't work here. I'd take everything home."
a.) Does that mean that I'm an asshole for "only" having one dog and three cats?
b.) Come tag along on a hoarding bust... Vick's Vaporub stinging the skin under your nose within your mask, shit-skating through a puke-inducingly filthy house full of dozens of decrepit, dying and/or dead cats. Then remind me what you said about "taking them all home."

Thank you, good night. It's just Friday. It's nothing personal. We can talk about cutewittle baby kittens some other time, 'k?

And I really am not this much of a sourpuss. Honest.