I hate the dentist

There, I said it.

I hate everything about the dentist. The sounds. The smells. The feeling of strange fingers and tools probing around in my mouth.

Typical Dentist Visit
I hate being made AWARE of the inside of my mouth and having my attention directed to it...

My childhood dentist tried to make the X-ray machine more comfortable for kids by dressing it like a giraffe.

Really Bad Artist's Rendering
But with its dead, staring eyes and frozen tube mouth, it looked more like this in my flashbacks:

And I hated, in that horrible children's dentist office, the anxiety that hung over my reclining form in anticipation of whatever no-doubt unfavorable judgment the dentist would soon be pronouncing on me, with my parents as witness.

Does the dentist know, as Santa Claus must, that I haven't really been flossing all that much?

Have I been found guilty of cavities in the first degree? Will teeth need to be pulled?

Good lord, what if I am sentenced to five years hard braces?

I hate everybody!
I worry about the surfaces I touch at the dentist office. Who touched them last? When were they cleaned? Where do the tools go after they've been used on me and what do they touch during that journey?

I don't like seeing details of teeth or mouths or even seeing other people brush their teeth.

I always had to look away at this scene created for Sesame Street of the Happy Days characters brushing their teeth for what seemed like an eternity. Not cool, Fonzie.

Same goes for this brushing demonstration from the oral hygiene classroom scare film The Haunted Mouth. I swear allegiance to Plaque and all His dark minions--just take away those teeth!

The eternally teeth-baring Mr. T from The Letter People, did not help at all...

This mouth-eyed view of a dentist visit from The Little Shop of Horrors? Ugh. Just, no... I can only look at through squinted eyes.

For reasons known only to my imaginary psychologist, this similar view from inside a giant dog's mouth (Digby, The Biggest Dog in the World) doesn't really bother me that much.