A Hit of Laughing Gas - Not So Funny, Is It?

Intense emotionality and nonsense may follow - ye be warned.


This morning I had two wisdom teeth removed.

Picture it:

I'm a little nervous as the nurse warns me of the upcoming torment I'm set to experience; she's apologizing ahead of time. She's the real reassuring type. No understanding of psychology, miss nurse lady? I wasn't terrified five minutes ago, but I am now. Thank you. Thank you for your kind, gentle words that translate into little devils' pitchforks for my psyche.

"Are you okay with laughing gas?"

"I want everything that makes this easier."

And so on goes the mask. To inform you, reader, I am particularly susceptible to most forms of drugs. I am a smaller-framed young woman, and also not typically inclined to walk the line Johnny Cash so often did in his time. I may like to call myself a writer, but this is one stereotype I've managed to avoid in life.

When the gas is turned up, however, the world suddenly becomes a little melt-ier than usual. Is it ever melty? I don't know, but it certainly was meltier this morning in that office chair. Theeen it hit me. Is it the same for everyone else? I mean is laughing gas supposed to feel like a shot of cotton candy speed coursing through your bloodstream? One minute, nothing; next, I'm being licked all over by a hot redhead/a tall-dark-and-handsome drink of water: pick your poison. At first, I daintily stole sips of air like a true Victorian prude. Quickly, though, my gasps became the breathing equivalent of an addict shooting heroine into his eyeballs. So for seconds or hours I'm thinking, "Jesus, maybe I should be dropping acid and embarking on mind-boggling soul journeys... maybe there's a reason all my heroes took shot after shot of whiskey and scotch and passed out underneath bridges, only to wake up and write masterpieces of literature - how could I not perform well under these conditions? Noooo pain!"

And there it is. That idea: pain. So what does that remind me of? Why do I need to mention it? To think of it? Well, because, dear, unsuspecting reader, I've been in quite a lot of it lately. Oh the little tugs at the heartstrings that you feel when you're heartbroken, and that don't seem to go away even when on laughing gas. So the word, the thought, the implication... it sets me off. Nurse anti-Freud? Was this what you meant when you said I was going to experience "extreme discomfort"? Why doesn't laughing gas numb your brain, boys and girls? I sure wish it did.

So the cotton candy melts and the redhead slips out the door while I'm still sleeping - the slinky bitch didn't even leave a number. And now I remember why I don't do drugs, don't even get very plastered when I'm drinking: I'm a bad tripper. I'm that negative Nancy character that just can't sink into the groove of wonderland. In the words of Woody Allen, "I don't do well with mellow. If I get too mellow I tend to ripen and rot."

The doc shuffles in, sticks a few needles in me for good measure, and leaves me again to my drugged fancies. All alone, glued to a dentist office chair. My phone is far away - thank God. Thank God they make you put your belongings far away after administering you drugs. There is no doubt I would have experienced very regrettable and wild text message sessions during this time frame. Should I explain?

Here my panic attack begins. No; not because I'm about to have pieces of my God-granted body parts removed by a half-blind, aging former soldier with scary tools, but because I'm a depressive of late. How depressive? Well, how much do you need me to funny it up? How about I can't. You don't know how sorry I am about that - how sorry I am for everything I'm about to relay to you.

When I look over at the horribly positioned mirror to my right, I see how many tears are streaming down my face. And streaming.

And streaming...

And streaming.

I didn't even realize, but I can't stop. Why? This isn't funny, and I'm not faking the emotion just to pretend that I feel the way they do in movies - like I used to. And it flashes in my brain that maybe when the nurse walks in, or the doctor, well, they are certainly going to think I'm insane. Laughing gas, laughing gas. "This girl isn't having cancer removed - they're just wisdom teeth for Christ's sake! Why is her face all wet?"

So I go into a deep, dark place with no laughing. Lots of gas, but no laughing. Can't feel the tears coming out of my eyes as they do, but I know they're there. I can sense the constant warmth of them on my partially awake cheeks. World is melty.

"Are you getting upset? It will only be a few minutes." Nurse Discomfort chimes in through the door and notes my erratic, panic-induced breathing. Hyper-ventilating.

"I was just thinking." Thinking about all this pain I'm in that has nothing to do with teeth.

"Oh. Yeah! The gas does that."

...Thinking about that stupid mirror beside me on the wall, and how unflattering its reflection of me is. Like not gorgeous. Like when you, you-who-I'm-thinking-about, told me you'd never met a woman who you thought was gorgeous. Wow. When I saw myself in that mirror I noticed that I wasn't either. So you were right. I'm not gorgeous. And you know what? I don't look too white in that mirror either. So that makes me laugh. I laugh out loud, sitting in that office, drugged up like a sad clown; I laughed out loud because for once I look at myself and I don't look white. And I laughed because I always end up thinking you're right about everything. But. I don't tell you that. Why the fuck would I ever tell you that? You hardly tell me when I'm right either, and we have that much in common - we're both almost always fucking right.

I grow increasingly hysterical because my phone is half a mile away, on the other side of the room. I'm drugged up and I am in a black cotton candy void waiting for the devil/dentist with the scary tools, and I can't speak to you. So what is it I want to tell you when I'm all drugged up? Why why why aren't you with me? Why why why doesn't it matter to you how much I miss you? Why why why am I supposed to be numb by now... but I'm not?

Then more hot tears come because I can't foresee a time when I will be numb to it. Laughing gas only goes so deep, and so too sessions with best friends, and late nights drinking, and going to bed too early/waking up too late, and meeting someone new, and movies with happy endings that I don't understand, and time that I don't want to pass...

I don't really remember him that well anymore, the scary tools guy. I can't help thinking that how much this hurts and all the adrenaline pumping through me because of it is much stronger than whatever metal he's going to poke me with. You're a lot more painful than having an impacted wisdom tooth removed. So I keep thinking about you in this melty ebony world so that my body can continue pumping out some half-assed painkiller for my teeth that it should have been dispensing months ago to my destroyed-fucking-heart.

It's difficult to notice the dentist when he finally enters for the surgery - I myself am barely in the room. I'm freaking out. I am freaking out because I can't stop crying even though I'm high, and I can't stop feeling even though I'm shot full of liquid anti-feeling. Because there's something deep deep in me and deep deep in my brain that you're deep deep in, and I really really hate that I uncovered that ugliness with just a little bit of laughing gas. You've been around too long. You made me laugh too much.

Here goes. Bright lights in my eyes. Old guy with metal tools. Blood and "lots of pressure". "May have to call Dr. so and so because of this", "Well, let's see if we can take care of it."

What?

"It'll only be a few minutes. Almost done. Good job. Open up - WIDER."

God, I can't really tell where I am. Sleepy sleepy sleepy I feel. Really dark and really bright. One hail-Mary shining metal torture tool inserted into my mouth. I can see it hanging out and above my face... lots of pressure, lots of pressure....

BUT nothing compared to: why am I unable to convince myself that I don't love you?- The way I could with everyone else.

Another prod, one more tool... little deeper pressure, a little deeper pressure...

What does it compare to: you love someone else, you love someone else... lots of pressure... You don't love me, you can't love me... You tried, couldn't do it.. I'm not gorgeous... you love someone else...

"The last bit, almost done... Just one final..."

Won't compare to: me realizing I'm old-fashioned. I've learned that I'm old-fashioned, because there was only ever going to be the one time, the one person, for the rest of my life. This is the first time, the first person, and it's you - it always should have been. You who makes me laugh when I'm sober, and cry when I'm on laughing gas. You're all fucked up, and I'm even more fucked up now. I chose poorly, but it's too late. Everybody always says that, but they don't know me and I do. I only ever had it in me for the one, and I'm already in love with, you know, the ONE.. person. Exactly like Disney love. Just because he makes me laugh? A hell of a lot more than laughing gas does anyway.

When the black takes over, you are every last thought in my head. I've never experienced that before. No one else will ever be you - you are a formula that can't be repeated. And because I'm remembering this, I have no fear of the man ripping teeth and flesh out of my mouth. Maybe it was the gas and the Novocaine too; but who knows? I think it was you.

"Bite down on this."

I come out of the fog, and have survived the scary tools. I don't remember it but in small pieces, like my poor, dead teeth of wisdom lying in some trashcan somewhere. How does laughing gas make you feel better about going through a surgical procedure? Is it because it draws hideous emotional poisons out of you and brings them to the surface of your mind? So you can endure them and forget about your severed meat and gums?

Next time, no gas. No laughing for me. I am so sick of laughing. Where has laughing got me? To a place that hurts to laugh. Though, maybe that's what the vicodin prescription is for.