The Dentist

Paquita Gutiérrez was scared to death of dentists. For the last few days she has been tortured by a tooth. At first, she was hoping that it would simply go away, then she tried all the pain killers in the medicine cabinet. After 3 days, she went to see Carmen, her neighbor who did talking therapy. After 5 days, and not being able to stand it anymore, she made an appointment with the eminent dentist, the doctor Salomon Mimran, whose reputation was the talk of Paris. Paquita, her jaw deformed by an enormous abscess, sat down in the dentist’s chair as if it were the electric chair. “Octor, is it goin to ‘urt?” asked Paquita, her words deformed by the inflammation. “No madam, you won’t feel a thing”, lied the doctor, “you are in good hands. Let’s see, open up and we will look at this infected molar.” “Ehh….is alwedy open” said Madame Gutiérrez. At the fourth shot, the anesthesia began to take effect.

She had the impression that her tongue was a piece of rag. She wanted to say something, but only could utter some guttural sounds. The doctor thought that it was going to be easy, but when the second pair of pliers broke in his hands, he began to have his doubts. “Relax, everything is going fine” lied again the doctor as he put his foot on the left shoulder of his patient to gain better leverage. Paquita Gutiérrez regretted not having made her will.  After 40 minutes of struggle, and after a super human effort, the doctor managed to extract the rebel tooth.  With pride he studied it attentively and …began to feel drops of sweat drip down the back of his neck. “Let’s see, open up…” said the doctor who shuddered when he saw that the tooth he held in his pliers was a pre-molar in perfect health.