some light fillings; I've never even seen that movie

Well, it's what you've all been waiting for:  a full poem!

A Royal Appointment

Take a fence of jagged diamond pillows,

Closing in a pink and squirming piggy.

Piggies get their feed, and feed begets a sty—

Well, that’s how I wound up in all this mess.

Take a shepherd’s crook and shrink it small,

File down the point and turn the whole thing over

To a person who shouts “SAW!” when you least expect

To no-one in particular (and yet the saw comes).

Take me, well-intentioned, dutiful, give me rules,

Simple rules that are easily followed;

When I obey and still suffer, nod sagely—these things happen—

And cut, and drill, and break, and rebuild.

Take this little stranger in my mouth,

I have no royal blood, I’m American!

And yet, I wear a crown, a royal reminder

That I don’t make the rules, but pay the price all the same.

Yes, I did have a dentist appointment today, as a matter of fact.  Despite my admirably solid dental hygiene (of late), I'm afraid I needed to have a crown put in (the horror!).  Two weeks ago, I took a short walk; on reaching home and sitting down on the couch, I realized my mouth felt strange.  One of my teeth had somehow lost a large chunk of itself, although I couldn't recall feeling it go away.  A visual inspection confirmed that there was a large hole in the back of one of my bicuspids, which astonished me.

I immediately made a dentist appointment, and they informed me the whole thing had rotted out due to decay.  The whole tooth!  I was spared only a few shreds and, thankfully, the nerve, so no root canal was necessary.  When I told people I needed a crown, they all grimaced and expressed sympathy -- although, really, it was no more painful or onerous than having a cavity filled.  Mainly I'm thankful that the folks at Reardon Dental are so efficient and professional, and that my nerve had the moxie to survive.

The crown is a great fit, too, which is good.  I've chipped a tooth once before, from very foolishly biting down on a piece of metal that just needed oiling, and it was an especially traumatic experience.  From time to time, I look at that tooth (one of my top canines) and feel terrible remorse.  These teeth have been with me almost from the beginning; they have served me very well, and deserve to be taken care of.  When one takes a hit, be it cavity or otherwise, I feel like I've let a soldier down.

More than that, though, is the sense of a permanent, immediate change to my body that terrifies me.  I understand that human bodies change over time, but things like dismemberment, tattoos, and even piercings induce a visceral reaction, disturbing me immensely.  Things that I recognize as innately temporary, like breaks (even if it means that full function never returns) or cuts (even those that leave large scars) don't bother me in nearly the same way, because the body can usually correct something about it.  Then again, ritual scarification freaks me out, too; and I think, technically, all piercings are a form of that.

Ear piercings don't bother me so much, just because they're ubiquitous.  It's hard to stay sensitive to something like that.

Shortly after I had gotten engaged, I remarked offhand to my then-father-in-law-to-be about my feelings regarding tattoos, particularly how they seemed intimidatingly permanent.  He gave me a wry look, nodded at my then-fianceé, and answered that I was about to make a very permanent decision, myself.

Well, that blew my mind, and I had no idea how to answer it at the time (spoiler alert:  I got married anyway).  But I realized later that, while both a marriage and a tattoo are forever (barring painful surgery and heavy application of either lasers or lawyers), your tattoo will never change; your spouse will, as you grow and learn about life alongside each other.

The cliché complaint of the unhappy spouse is "you're not the person I married."  And that's true, inevitably, but it's also true that the complainer isn't the person his spouse married, either.  Our experiences mold us; we are never the people we were yesterday.

So we change, and the people we love change -- it's our choice, though often a difficult one, whether to grow together or apart.  But as you grow together, mingling your roots and curling around each other in an infinite embrace, I am reminded of an old adage from Asia, alternately attributed to Aesop, Genghis Khan, and others:

A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune. 

One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so. 

The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily. 

"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."  Source

The circumstances are different, but the meaning is the same:  it is our established relationships that give us the strength to weather the storms of life.  Whether you're a tooth, or a tree, or a person, you're no stronger than your roots -- but you have a choice of where, and with who, you put them down.