Have I mentioned my drug problem?

So, I'm less than an hour away from an always-terrifying visit to my dentist. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy, and the hygenist is lovely, but I was tortured as a child by an evil, sadistic wretch of a dentist, and his Eva Braun of an assistant, so it is with great trepidation that I prepare for a visit, even now, when I've switched dentists. The greatest perk of my new dentist, bar none, came when he offered, several years ago, to give me nitrous oxide during a routine cleaning. That's right, ladies and germs, laughing gas. The good stuff. I've never looked back since.

I get in that chair, no matter what the procedure, and I tense up. I've tried taking Advil beforehand, even my smuggled British drug of choice which contains over-the-counter codeine, and once I think I took a friend's Valium. But it's the gas, and loud music playing on my iPod (or generic mp3 player, back when that was what I had), that gets me through.

Sweet, sweet gas, which I breathe in with my eyes squeezed tightly closed so as not to see the reflection of the work being done on my mouth in the glass of the light above. With the music, it ends up being a little party in my head -- a dance party, with the sound of the drill or the brush thing fading to an odd techno beat behind the swing or Irish rock pumping into my ears.

Anyway, that's where I'll be soon. High.