The Haunted Dental Office

Sometimes they make you wait a while. 

The door of my dentist's office, crisscrossed with yellow crime scene tape, carried a warning sign: Enter With Caution. Standard operating procedure for anyone encountering "Stephen King's The Dental Zone," where the possibility of a deadly root canal lurks in every corner. Good thing I was only there for a fitting. I'm so skilled with the teeth grinding that I'd managed to crack the bottom of my night guard yet again. One look at Spooky Skeleton Guy in the waiting room gave me pause. Had they lured me here for something more sinister? On top of which, it was Funny Hat Day. God knows I look funny in a hat. I would've played along. A dental assistant in a Winnie The Pooh beanie waved hello and ushered me into the tiny room, quoting her favorite Disney character. "As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen." I sat in the chair and she put a nice schmear of numbing solution on my gums. "I didn't ask for that." "Shhhh, it's on the house." Then my dentist appeared. As she picked up the top part of my night guard, marveling that I hadn't mangled it, she dropped it on the floor. "Oops," she said. I thought I saw her head spin.

Had they laced the numbing solution with something hallucinogenic? Were Heffalumps and Woozles in my near future, or was I just being paranoid? Yeah, a little. The haunted moment gave way to hilarity, as the room filled with folks in dental scrubs and funny hats. There was a lot of "How many dentists does it take to find a night guard?"

"It's right there." "That's a dust bunny." "Move the cabinet." 

"There's the penny I lost last week."

I climbed out of the chair and joined the fruitless search. The elusive item had been sucked into a black hole, never to be seen again. "Looks like someone's getting a new set of night guards," my dentist said. "I've never been happier." I left with a shiny appliance destined for destruction, and my sanity more or less in tact.