Quiz: What time is it? A: Tooth-Hurty

I just had one of the more unnerving dental appointments to date. I was scheduled to have a temporary tooth-piece replaced with a permanent piece that was being grown in a lab (kid thee not.) Yes, yes, I know that 'tooth-piece' is euphemistic for 'crown', but the latter sounds horribly old and gross so I'm going with tooth-piece. Anywaaay, the very nice dental assistant woman I've become chatty with during my many visits was to be responsible for dislodging (?) the temporary and prepping the area. Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong.

First she went in with a pliers/scissors hybrid and attempted to wrench by wiggling the temporary from its home. After a couple minutes of these unsuccessful attempts, she moved to my favorite dental implement, the little metal pick. She picked at the edges of the thing (conveniently located .2mm below my gumline), again to no avail.

"Have you ever eaten a Jujube?" she asked.

Panicking, thinking she's accusing me of more oral negligence I blurt out "No! I swear!"

"Well we're going to use this stuff that's just like a Jujube. I'm going to put this piece in your mouth, ask you to bite down on it and hold for a couple seconds, then when I say, I need you to open you jaw really quickly and it will pull it out."

She comes at me with a very cool cyber-blue cube of gelatinous material.

"This might be warm, but that's to soften it so it sticks to your tooth", she explained as she placed the dental candy object on the offending tooth. "Now bite into it slowly and fully."

I complied and it was exactly as she said -- like an oversized, warm Jujube. I felt my tooth sink into it as the cube squashed, wrapping itself around the tooth and its neighbors above. I clenched my jaw as instructed, then when she started counting I actually placed my closed fists against my jaw.

"1...2...3!" she commanded.

I wrenched my jaw open, heard a disgusting noise, and watched her pull the now-squashed cube out of my mouth with the jagged piece of fake tooth stuck in it. It was pretty wild, lemme tell you.

I will never eat candy again.

And the dental assistant is going to add me "to her prayers" so that I may quit smoking. Isn't that cute?