Apollonia

Saint Apollonia was a martyr in Alexandria; she was tortured by having all her teeth ripped out or shattered. After that completely horrible ordeal, she was presented with either renouncing Christ or being burned alive – she chose to jump into the fire. Whoever decides which saint gets to be the patron of so-and-so had a pretty sick sense of humor – Apollonia is commonly shown holding her own teeth in pliers and is prayed to for tooth problems.

I was thinking about Apollonia when I went to the dentist today (because my suffering was completely comparable to ancient Roman torture). The dentist injected three shots of novocaine – I didn’t feel anything at all. In fact, I didn’t regain feeling in the lower leftmost fourth of my face until five hours later. Then I noticed that I had been chewing my tongue up since attempting to eat my dinner in half bites.

The worst part of “the dentist” is smelling your enamel burn as they shear down the sides of your filling (is that enamel, or whatever they make fillings out of?). I’m aware some people aren’t prone to cavities, such as G. Staltari, who achieved his first serious tooth decay during his freshman year at the University of the Holy Ghost. My brother, on the other hand, had TEN cavities a few months ago; he must have been trying for a record.