A few years ago I went to the NYU dental school in New York because I had an abscess. They charged me a very reasonable $100 to sort it out. During the checkup they found more and more stuff that needed doing. A filling here, an onlay there. A root canal I had done years ago was discovered to have been botched. So fine I said, just sort it all out.
Well the dental school is cheap, but so slow because the students have to do everything themselves without an assistant and have to have their work assessed at every step. Luckily they're open some evenings, so for the next month or so I spent countless hours lying in that damn chair while they did God knows what. Sometimes it took so long the anesthetic started to wear off and I felt the drilling. Had a few moments of almost passing out, but I'm not one to complain....
Anyway they really suck you in with talk of what they could do for your teeth. Whitening, straightening etc. The girl said I have quite good teeth that are nicely spaced, but they're just a little neglected cosmetically. So we can do whitening, veneers (only $500 a pop, a bargain!) etc. I thought what the hell, I might as well go for it while I'm in the mood for dentist work. So I agreed to having the bottom ones whitened and sparkling new veneers on the top ones. Man I never realized how much work veneers involves. The moulds, the temporaries, the filing teeth down etc. I seemed to be never out of the place. That was my fill of dentists forever and I hate going now. I just got so sick of that chair. Luckily though they did an absolutely wonderful job with the veneers (always a risk at a dental school) and I now have a pair of gleaming Hollywood chompers. Which are perhaps a little over the top considering they're whiter than the whites of my eyes. It certainly makes you feel a lot more confident about smiling though.