Drilling Down

TigerBlog isn't feeling it right now.

Want to know why? It's because he's coming off his first-ever root canal, a thrilling event that happened yesterday afternoon.

His dentist referred him to an endodontist and sent him on his way with these words: "It's not as bad as everyone thinks." Oh yeah? 

The endodontist was a very nice man who came in and introduced himself as "Larry." Okay Larry. No need for formalities. 

He then showed TB his x-rays, as if they made sense to TB, and gave TB a very detailed description of what had led him to this point. Then he did a few checks on TB's teeth, including one where he put this very cold solution against the nerve, saying "raise your hand if you feel the cold."

The first two times, there was nothing. The third time? Yes, that definitely made an impression. It led to this actual conversation:

TB: "Sorry about not raising the hand."
Larry the Endodontist: "That's okay. I took the fact that you tried to levitate out of your chair as a substitute for hand-raising."

Fair enough. Then it was open wide and the insertion of a block in his mouth that, while successfully allowing Larry access to the back of TB's mouth, also made TB feel like his jaw was going to permanently come off its track.

The actual procedure took a bit over an hour and started with the numbing. As Larry began to do his thing, there was a classic rock playlist in the background, and Larry was humming along as he worked. 

As he began to drill, the song that played was "I Can See Clearly Now," by Johnny Nash. It was sort of ironic, since the rain was lashing against the window.

Oh, and the drilling? TB could see and smell the smoke that was coming from his mouth. That was, um, disheartening. And, to be honest, it was a bit, what's the word, surreal? There TB was, stuck in a chair, mouth immobilized, with an endodontist who was half-whistling, half-singing "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way." TB would have laughed, but he had the whole Hannibal Lector face-mask deal going.

For the entire time, Larry was whistling and working. At one point, the Dire Straits song "Walk Of Life" came on, and Larry didn't whistle. "He must know this song," TB thought. "Something must be wrong. He's gone after the wrong tooth." Fortunately, Larry picked it back up for the second verse. Whew.

As TB heard the humming in one ear, he also heard the voice of his good friend Zack DiGregorio in the other ear, whispering to him: "Forget the pain. Forget how much your jaw hurts. This is great blog content."

He was right too. It's amazing what floats through your mind while your root canal is ongoing.

First TB wondered how many of these Larry had done and what the first one was like. He'd ask him about it after the procedure. 

What else came to his mind? Oh yeah ... filling beer cups from the bottom up. 

Remember when TB talked about how he saw that at the Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium last week? Well, he got an email from Charlie Bell, a soccer player from the Class of 1976 and a huge Princeton Athletics fan. 

It turns out that Charlie's wife is a big Spurs fan (his team is Crystal Palace) and he had done some investigating into how the beer comes from the bottom of a cup at the stadium. You can read about it HERE.

TB began to wonder how long he'd been in the chair. He'd also wished he'd asked for a mirror to watch it. 

Then he thought about how he'd been talking to women's head basketball coach Carla Berube earlier in the week, and she mentioned his story on Abby Meyers from England. If you haven't read it yet, it's HERE.

Carla asked TB if the London Lions women's coach really did look like her, to which TB said she did. He also mentioned her quote: "That's good for her then," which made Carla smile.

He thought about how many touchdown receptions Andrei Iosivas had this year, which as you know is four, and wondered how many he'd had at Princeton last year. Turns out it was seven, with five the year before that. 

The Olympic qualifying tournaments are next week for field hockey, and Princeton junior-to-be Beth Yeager (USA) and alum Elise Wong (Canada) will be competing for spots in Paris. That popped into his head too.

Then he thought about a bunch of other non-Princeton Athletic stuff, and he won't bore you with that. Back on the Princeton Athletics theme, there's already a spreadsheet that exists for the upcoming winter/spring crossover season and which events will be covered by which member of the Office of Athletic Communications. 

Think about that. It's barely past the first week of January, and the OAC is already planning for the end of winter and the start of baseball, softball, lacrosse, golf and others. Crazy.

He remembered that he'd spelled Xaivian Lee's name wrong here earlier in the week and felt badly about that. He left out the first "i," and the presence of the second one meant he couldn't make a "there's no "i" in Xaivian' excuse.'"

Also, TB checked the number of bio clicks for the first nine days of 2024 for current Princeton athletes. Lee is already past 4,000; no other Princeton athlete had more than 545 (Sarah Fillier).

Finally, finally — TB was finished. Larry took the block out of his mouth, and TB was able to sit up. 

"How many times have you done this and what was the first time like?" TB asked.

"Hmmm," Larry said. "Well, figure seven a day times 240 working days a year times 20 years. What does that come to?"

Turns out it comes to 33,600.

And the first time? 

"I didn't have the muscle memory I have now."

Then he was off to his next one. As he walked down the hall, TB could hear him whistling "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young. And he could hear Zack, who was saying "told you."