At least now I know there is progression in the state of human affairs – at least in the dental aspect of said state. Let me give you a brief history of dental work done in my mouth over the last 32 years.

As a child, I had a bunch of cavities.

In 1982, the last of my 7 cavities was discovered, drilled, and filled (this is so long ago that novocaine was a pipe-dream and I just had to take the pain like Charlie Sheen in Platoon).

In 1990, it was decided by the powers that were that my wisdom teeth had to go. I asked for them to take all four of them out in one sitting, and so they did. I was pretty miserable for two days, but on the third day I was already cheerfully crunching walnuts in my mouth.

Then, for a great number of years, nothing at all happened. Cut to an embroidered pillow with the words “ten years later”…

After so much nothing happening, my dentist suddenly decided that my old, ugly, grey fillings had to be replaced by fancy new white ones. Who am I to disagree, I thought (though travelling the world and the seven seas was not an option at the time), and let him do his thing. One entire row of molars suddenly looked brand new – I had visions of my smile looking like that of a Hollywood star. We decided to keep replacing fillings every six months until I would be able signal distant ships with my open mouth.

We did so, and kept doing so for almost two years, with no pain at all and very good-looking results.

But then, two months back, my regular dentist went on some kind of soul-searching trip into the deep dark forests of Kazachstan, and I got switched onto the ticket of brand-new dental graduate Sebelia, who apparently needed the practice (and did she ever!). Of course I should have run like hell after hearing her name, but I was naive and trusting. So I settled into her chair, opened my mouth and closed my eyes.

Let me stress that I had no pain or other complaint of any kind at that point in time. That’s where the progression in the state of human affairs bit comes in.

She novocained, drilled, and filled, and waved me off. And the tooth looked great, like the rest of them. Only downside was: for the first time in my life, I had a permanent toothache.

I bore it for 4 weeks before coming back. Sebelia smiled at me and took X-rays, discovering a new cavity in the tooth she’d filled. She novocained, drilled, and filled, and waved me off.

The toothache remained. But as a new feature, any cold or hot drink suddenly, for the first time in my life, caused wince-inducing pain.

I bore it for 4 weeks before coming back. Sebelia smiled at me and took X-rays, discovering a cavity. She novocained, drilled, and filled, and waved me off. Copy-and-paste, the lazy writer’s tool, but a complete lie. There was no way I was letting Sebelia back into my mouth. No, her colleague Hans stepped in, took one look at the tooth, and decided on last week’s root canal job.

Indeed, after that the tooth no longer functioned as a temperature-to-pain converter, but the tooth-ache remained. And my dental office conveniently closed down for the summer. So tonight I was forced to visit an emergency dentist, who again drilled and filled.

Guess what? Pain’s still there, but now the tooth also hurts when there’s too much of a bounce in my step. If that’s not progression, I don’t know what is!