HORROR STORY: A TRIP TO THE JAPANESE DENTIST DUM DUM DUM DUM

It was a dark and storm day (seriously). The sideways rain (as Lauren puts it) descended from the sky like a wall of knives, stinging my eyes at it forced my bicycle in every direction but forward. I was hoping I'd arrive at the kindergarten to find we were in the middle of a typhoon and I could peddle home, but alas school was very much in session. (Does nothing make these people cancel school?)
When I arrived at the dentist the sky was still gloomy and foreboding. With pants soaked up to my knees I entered the dentist office and put on the requisite slippers waiting at the door. A Japanese dentist? What was I thinking?!
If you lived in inaka (country side) Japan and you saw the half golden/half rotting smiles grinning their way around town, you'd fear the dentist as much as all us English teachers do. What made me face this fear? Well, a friend found a dentist who spoke some English and was getting her wisdom teeth taken out for only $30 a tooth! Seeing as my kickass insurance is ending in just a month, and since my upper jaw has been a bit unhappy, I figured I should have my teeth taken out now, rather than try to scrounge up $200 when I'm jobless and insuranceless back in the states. He took two x-rays and was like, you have no wisdom teeth--sure enough, no wisdom teeth in the x-ray. Then he asked if I'd had braces and I was like yeah, and he shows me this English dentist book telling me I have some jaw disorder and it was probably caused by the orthodontic work. Great. Anyway, at least I don't have to get teeth pulled! I do have cavities though, which I blame on running out of American toothpaste and having to use the Japanese variety for a few months--but he assured me he would use non-metal filling. He was very quick to tell me this which leads me to think other foreigners made a big deal about not using gold in the past. Haha. So for all those in Japan, this dentist is safe, I swear!