Don’t worry dentophobes, this is a dream that does not include dental work of any sort.  Unless you count paperwork.  Which is painful.

I mentioned to a few people over the weekend that I need to go see a dentist because I think I may have a cavity.  This would be my first.  The horrors!  So, of course, I have a dream about going to the dentist.  It starts with me needing to choose a dentist.  I do so by the very scientific method of walking down the street from dentist to dentist and choosing one.  The one that I finally decide upon is run by a Hispanic looking man with a bushy black mustache.  I chose it because I liked the waiting room which consisted of a long, narrow hallway with dark wood paneling.  On one side of the hallway were cheap plastic chairs and on the other side was one long counter like you would see in front of a receptionist’s window.  There was no receptionist’s window.

The dentist proclaims that I must fill out the paperwork before I can see him.  He then proceeds to pull out all of these clipboards and starts lining them up along the counter, gives me a pen, and then disappears.  I begin to fill out all of the paperwork, but there are a bunch of pages that make absolutely no sense so i leave them blank.  The dentist eventually comes back and asks me if I have any questions and I respond “No”, even though I clearly do.  He starts looking over the paperwork and, noticing some blank pages, asks why I haven’t filled them out and I respond that the questions don’t make any sense.  He retorts that it couldn’t be made any clearer what “You agree to pay a $2000 fine in the event you are ever accused of theft” means.  Yes, i agree, it is clear what it means, but why should I pay my dentist money if I’m accused of theft?  He responds that we can’t trust the police to do the job so we should all come together to develop a series of fines and self-police. I concur that the police have their problems, but this doesn’t seem to be an enforceable answer.  He then goes on this rant about how his hard earned money is being stolen from him by the government and his system will create a more perfect union and blah blah blah.  “Oh great, my dentist is a Libertarian”, I lament.

And then I wake up.