Will I Need a Hip-Hop Name to Go with My New Gold Teeth?

Went to the dentist today.

In August (when I return from Cambridge) I will be spending the equivalent of somewhere between a white plastic MacBook and a MacBook Air with SSD drive (but the slower processor) on a gold crown or two*. The mercury poisoning silver filling that makes up almost all of #19** is cracked. The existing porcelain crown on #18 is ill-fitting, and there is a very large probability that there is decay on #18 where the crown fits poorly right up against #19. My dentist won't know if the crown on #18 needs to be replaced until he drills away the large mercury poisoning silver filling that is obscuring the view on the x-ray. (Today when the hygienist took two x-rays of #18 and #19 she said something crazy like, "Don't worry about the radiation. They're digital." Digital, like the CT scans that have subjected my head to large quantities of ionizing radiation? That kind of digital?)

It would take about three X-serves' worth of dental work to replace all of my metal fillings, so I'm not planning on doing anything about them until they start to fail. And think about all the tuna fish that I would need to eat to keep from going into mercury withdrawal.


*The dental plan at work sucks, so I don't have dental insurance. Think of all the rewards points I'll be getting!

**Do you know what I mean when I talk about my teeth by number? If not: #18 is the "12-year" molar on the lower left and #19 is the "6-year" molar on the lower left. I don't carry #17 with me. I have it -- broken into a few pieces -- in a box at home.