You know the famous part of “Little Shop of Horrors” when Steve Martin, aka Orin Scrivello,DDS, has his little scene? Yes, well I that’s where I was, figuratively speaking, yesterday.

The day began innocently enough. Another trip over to my Dad’s house to continue the cleaning out of my Mom’s stuff. My mother never threw out anything. Ever. Now we get to do the honors.

Then, it was a trip to the dentist, where I was to get a permanent crown. (All the ugly stuff having been done weeks ago.)

So here I am in the dentist’s chair, with no novocain, looking at the birds in the bird feeder outside one minute, and the next minute I have a hand with the biggest hemostat I’ve ever seen trying to yank out what is now a firmly cemented crown out of my mouth.

Yes, it appears that for whatever reason, he cemented the tooth — but it was not “seated right.” When this was then discovered, it became something akin to a scene out of “ER” with him barking orders to not one, but now two assistants, followed by his cramming some kind of blue stuff onto the tooth, after which he then took the aforementioned hemostat and began to ….pull.

And pull.

And pull.

After the third attempt at this routine, I, who could not speak for the various implements and suction tubes in my mouth, finally just started to make noise. Lots of it. At which point he said, “Oh well, I don’t want to hurt her. Numb her up.”

Lovely.

So after being “numbed up,” then I got to experience something new. A dentist “cutting off” a newly cemented crown. Actually it involved cutting, digging, and well, you know, at that point, I think my hands had created permanent creases in the arm rest of the chair.

With pieces of porcelain flying around (the assistant advised me to close my eyes), yep, all I could think of was Steve Martin.

Which, all things considered, was probably not as good as trying to think of cool waters in a babbling brook. Or any of those other supposed “calming” visions one is supposed to try and think of during such an event.

Today? Sore jaw and a growing reluctance to ever set foot in a dentist’s office again.