- DAMN THOSE COOL RANCH BAKED DORITOS!

Food can be painful sometimes and I don't mean the emotional kind of pain like sitting in your closet in college, crying yourself to sleep covered with a tray of frosted chocolate cupcakes you stole from the cafeteria at 3 in the morning. I'm talking physical pain!

I remember one time at UCONN I was at this pizza/hamburger joint which had an Australian outback theme for some reason. The food was pretty decent I remember my favorite sandwich there was a huge chicken cutlet smothered with Swiss cheese. One meal I remember like it was yesterday. I was munching away with some of my college friends when I took a well cooked French fry to my mouth which somehow got caught in the upper part of my gum behind my front teeth. It hit really hard and actually started to bleed. No one but me knew what had happened so I ran into the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out with cold water until it stopped bleeding. I was kinda embarrassed and never told anyone.

Today I am purging myself of moments like these but only because of something that just happened to me a few hours ago.

My girlfriend is hooked on the baked cool ranch dorito's and buys them regularly. Tonight she was eating some so I had a few even though they taste kinda nasty and smell twice as worse. I was munching away when all of a sudden I felt a weird feeling in my mouth and started to bite down on something that felt like a pebble. I ran into the bathroom, spit into the sink, and saw a piece of my tooth.

Intermission: Is this post too gross? I'm sitting back thinking about this now wondering if you are A) interested in this B) holding your hand over your mouth or C) I can't think of a C it's really late.

I almost started to cry because I have this weird thing about my teeth. I'm always nervous about them and I remember why as I'm writing this. I got hit in the mouth with a baseball once when I was very young at a daycamp and lost a tooth because I wasn't paying attention. Man this writing shit is therapeutic. It now makes sense why I was always nervous playing sports in middle/high school and only felt comfortable playing golf (though I was still a little worried when someone screamed FORE!)

Another memory is the first time I slept over a friends house which turned out to be quite traumatic. The kid was named P.J. and his parents were a bit on the crazy side. I had a loose tooth which was ready to come out and the whole night I was nervous about it. This kids mother kept joking around with me about tying one end of a thread to my tooth and the other end to a door knob and slamming it shut. To top it off, The Shining was on tv that night and I didn't want to watch it but they were going to force me to. I ended up calling my dad and he picked me up and I never slept over. That friend lived like less than a mile away. God what a loser I was in 10th grade huh?

So back to the bathroom. Over the past year or so I had some major sensitivity around a few teeth in the back of my mouth. My dentist said it might be GINGIVITIS!!!and suggested Listerine. I thought I heard from another dentist that Listerine was just alcohol and didn't do anything but burn your mouth for a few seconds. Anyway I tried to ignore it but sometimes when I bit down on that part of my mouth I would feel a sharp pain. I knew something wasn't right and paid for it with one crunch last night.

So this morning I brought my little broken piece of my tooth into work and called the dentist. I told them I had an emergency and had to see a dentist as soon as possible and they gave me a 12:30 appointment.

I got two needles in my mouth and opted not to pay the $100 fee for gas (which isn't covered by my dental insurance) and then sat through a half hour of nerve racking drilling and another half hour of making an impression and putting all kinds of glue and nasty tasting pastes in my mouth, I was left with a temporary crown which looks like a piece of well chewed Wrigleys gum. I have to go back in two weeks for a permanent one but I am so not looking forward to going back there.

I don't think I would last on one of those Survivor shows.. or even a weekend camping for that matter.