I hate to think about any of this stuff, and I especially hate the fact that this guy has black teeth and what appears to be a straightened paper clip rammed through his tongue. Sheesh!

I approached today’s trip to the dentist with more than the usual degree of trepidation. After all, I thought that in addition to having my teeth scraped, Stanhope Family Dentistry was poised to hit me with a few new wrinkles.

It all started more than a week ago when I received a text message reminding me to make an appointment for my regular check-up. Text message? Holy crap! Who signed me up for that? I decided my best bet would be to ignore it and maybe they’d think they had the wrong number, but it was no use because they followed up the unanswered text with a phone call. And oh my god, it wasn’t…