A Hole

The Glee kids are singing and I'm enjoying a "home alone" dinner of pretzels and Diet Sprite when my tongue feels something foreign. Or rather, the lack of something.

A hole. In my mouth. 

I jump from the couch and continue probing the empty space as if it would feel different standing. As if being upright would suddenly allow my brain to say "why no, Sam, of course there's no hole. You just continue watching Glee's 500th song and eating those pretzels."

Of course, my disloyal brain says nothing of the sort.

Because there's a hole. In my mouth.

A HOLE.

I literally pinch myself to make sure I'm awake. To be positive this isn't a weird Freudian dream or something.

And it hurts, so I'm obviously awake and anyway if I was dreaming, I would probably be eating something far more awesome than pretzels.

And the Glee kids are still singing, but I can't focus on the song because THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

I obviously have a disease. Some horrible exotic malady. And my tongue drifts warily over the rest of my mouth to see if any other holes have spontaneously appeared. No more. For now.

I fall on my computer and google "broken teeth" and click on WedMD and wait for the names of mysterious illness to appear. 

The normally scaremongering website says it's not serious unless I feel pain, in which case I should see a dentist immediately before the nerve dies.

And oh my god, now it hurts with the pain of a thousand lashes.

I leave an appropriately panicked message on my dentist's emergency voicemail, and wait for the call back which will obviously be soon because THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

But my phone stays silent.

I don't brush my teeth before bed because all my teeth are probably falling out anyway due to wasting disease so who cares if they're brushed or not.

I sleep in snatches. Each time I wake up I check and see if the empty space is still there, and of course it is because mouth holes don't just go away.

At 7am my dentist calls and tells me to come in. He sounds remarkably calm considering THERE'S A HOLE IN MY MOUTH.

An hour later I sit in his chair and he snaps on those hateful gloves. He fills my mouth with tools without saying a word and his silence is deafening.

I know he is trying to figure out how to break the news to me that I'll live a sad, toothless life. And now I'm starting to squirm and sweat and wonder if I'll spend the rest of my life removing my teeth at night to soak in a glass.

"Ok," he says, removing his gloves, and I brace myself for what comes next.

"Easy fix. Stop with the hard pretzels though. They're hell on the teeth."

My tongue drifts to the side of my mouth, and the hole is gone.