The Torment Room

There I was, sitting in the dentist’s chair, waiting for the show to start. I was getting for a temporary crown on my tooth and I was looking around when a sign on the wall caught my eye. “Please do not use cellphones in the torment room,” I read. Wait, what? The torment room? I was here to get a crown, not reenact the horror scene from Marathon Man . But then I looked harder and realized the word was “treatment”, not “torment” and realized that my overeager eyeballs had gone negative once again . I can’t say I’ve ever looked forward to visiting the dentist—and I really dread when the bills come due—but my doctor and his assistant are great people, and I wound up doing a fair bit of socializing amid the drilling and spitting. In addition to the good company, my dentist—it’s a father and son team—has a good office sound system and I often hear some nice old tunes over the racket. One song--“ Couldn't Get It Right ” by the Climax Blues Band—had been on my mind just a da...