A few days ago, I had to visit the dentist. I hate going to the dentist for a medley of reasons. I have a tiny mouth and dentists always seem to have enormous hands. I used to play oboe and after years of squeezing a double reed, my lips are uncooperative and always pressed against my teeth. Mostly, I hate the intrusive thoughts.

That said, I go every six months. I floss. I brush. But I drink so many coffees and workout drinks that it doesn’t matter how often I get my teeth cleaned (I also drink tons of water, doesn’t help), I always end up with cavities eventually. I had to get a couple minor fillings. No big deal. For most people.

Unfortunately, I have unmedicated (and uncontrollable) ADHD and am, surprise surprise, wildly antisocial. I have the most intrusive, most disgusting thoughts at the dentist. Most of them aren’t worth repeating. But the one that really fucks me up is the unrelenting self-destructive urge to lick the drill.

Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. It’s right there. Tap it. Tap it with your tongue. Just the tip. Do it. Do it. DO IT. DO IT. DO ITDOITDOITDOIT

DO IT—

We’re all done, the dentist announces and saves my tongue from the idiot it’s connected to. Thank God. I didn’t do it this time. I think most of the time, he’s convinced I’m a normal person. Then he has to fix something in my mouth and makes a note in my chart that I’m a “high anxiety” patient.

You would be anxious, too, if you were in here with this brain.

I don’t like the dentist. Not the man, the concept. I have a lot of bad feelings about my teeth. Someone stomped on my face, once upon a time. Another time, I was camping and fell out of a camper bunk and damn near knocked my teeth out. I’ve had braces three times to try and fix it, but my palate is too broken. My teeth always go crooked again, and I’ve endured as much torture as I’m willing to put up with in the pursuit of having straight, American teeth.

So, I survived another dentist visit. I feel like I’m owed a treat. I want an ice cold Coke, something I almost never have. I’m not much for junk food. I decide to go to McDonald’s for the first time in a long time. I get an ice cold Coke and you know what else sounds good? Some salty, salty french fries. Yes please. It’s almost dinnertime. I’ll go ahead and have them with a chicken sandwich.

I get my chicken sandwich. I take a bite.

Very dry. Very bland.

I lift the bun.

Two thin whispers of pickle.

No mayo.

This cost me… ten dollars. A bun, two honorable mentions of pickle, and a piece of chicken so deeply breaded, it only tastes like more bread. They couldn’t even wave the mayo bottle over it. Not even invert the squeezy mayo bottle and let it fart over the surface of the chicken. Not a hint, not a wisp, not a shart of moisture. So dry, if it gets any drier, Elon will send a rocket to try and mine it.

So I have a bread sandwich, with no mayo, no salt, no pepper from the way it tastes, and two hearty fuck yous worth of pickle.

Wow, goodie. Yay. Good thing I got a large coke because I’m gonna need it to choke down this dry ass bread sandwich.

I keep seeing American companies complaining that they are losing customers. I don’t know—maybe it’s because they provide a product so mediocre that eating it feels like being flipped off by a circus clown, at the circus.

You are a giant corporation selling engineered combinations of fat, sugar, and salt. Your sole purpose in this world is to briefly make me happy. Your ingredients are foolproof. How are you fucking this up?

I don’t know why, but it reminded me of this other odd eating experience at another American institution. I go to Costco a couple times a month and bulk-buy coffee and other shit that I consume too much of. Before I go and spend a paycheck on chocolate bars and boxes of cookies, I stop at the food court and eat something. We call it a date, because we’re such romantic people.

Anyway, it’s busy as fuck and there’s only one table left. I sit down and my husband soon joins me. I notice the table next to ours just has trash on it. Someone left their drinks and napkins. You’re supposed to throw it all away. I decide if it’s still there when I get done, I’ll toss it.

But a Black woman walks up with two kids and looks dismayed at the table situation. There are at least six tables that could seat four people and they’re all taken up by one white dude playing on his cellphone. None of them look up, offer her the table, or go to sit with another white dude playing on his phone so she could at least sit down.

I look at the table covered in trash. Another woman points at it and her husband gets up to clear the trash away. Hurray. The world has good people in it. But he doesn’t take the trash to the bin—ohnoohnoohno oh no oh no why is he putting it on his table why is she drinking from the stranger cups what is happening is this real life—

She catches my eye.

I stare. I blink. She blinks. She takes the straw out of her mouth and puts the cup down, but doesn’t throw it away.

“I think it’s Sprite,” she announces to her husband.

NO GOD WHY

As soon as the husband sits down with the cups, the woman with the kids starts to pick one of her kids up. She looks at the table.

A white man on his cellphone sits down at the table and she, to her credit, shows no reaction whatsoever. I consider my options. I could ask him to move. I wonder what kind of white man looks at a Black woman with two hungry kids and decides that table is his, though. Do I feel like being trouble today, or being aggressively friendly? There are little kids involved.

Fuck all this.

“Ma’am, do you want to sit with us?” As soon as I say anything my husband is moving our shit, scooting over, making room. She gladly accepts and we proceed to have a lovely lunch with strangers.

The other lady picks up her Stranger Sprite and takes it with her.

I think the matrix is glitching out.