I had the prep work for a crown today at the dentist. I really like my dentist — he and his wife are in my Sunday School class, and they’re really great people — but I hate going in to the dentist because I have such lousy teeth and have had so many fillings and other problems over the years. This is going to be my third crown. They grind the outside of your tooth down to a little pencil eraser-shaped post, then glue a temporary tooth to it for a couple of weeks until the real crown arrives.

One saving grace today was that they were able to get me completely numb. For some reason, my lower teeth sometimes don’t go completely numb even after two different shots of novocaine. Today, I didn’t feel any pain or sensitivity, just the irritating noise and vibration from the drill.