Of drains, dentists, irrational fears

When I was a little kid – maybe 2 or 3 – I had an embarrassing, irrational fear: I was terrified that I would be sucked down the bathtub drain.

Looking back, it's absurd. Those holes were tiny. I could never fit in them. (And even if I did, I'd likely be in the P-trap, where my parents could hire a plumber to rescue me.)

But every night, I would finish my bath and my mom or dad would pull the plug.

Lil' Brad would scramble out of the tub in a panic, barely escaping a horrible death. So my little brain thought.

It made no sense. It didn't matter.

Fast-forward several decades and it's deja vu – except instead of a bathtub drain, it's a trip to the dentist.

My name is Brad and I have dentalphobia. I've written about it before, but it's still there.

There's no reason. I haven't had a bad experience at the dentist in years. I visit every six months. The dental assistant is gentle (although she could vacuum the spit-water out of my mouth a little more frequently).

I still stress out.

Last week, I made my semiannual dental trip.

I entered the office and made my requisite appointment for six months from now (my personal schedule: Once at the beginning of the baseball season, once in the playoffs. Every April, every October). Then I went back to the torture cham . . . er, cleaning chair.

The assistant was nice. She confirmed my medical history. She asked about my job. She began cleaning my teeth. And . . . I felt sweat rising from my scalp. And my back. And my legs. They all tingled. The pace of my breathing picked up.

Nothing hurt. She was careful. My gums were safe.

I sweated some more.

"Is everything OK?" she asked after a few minutes, seeing my dilated pupils. "Yeah," I replied, trying to swallow.

She went back to work. I went back to perspiring. It was irrational. It was insane.

It was unavoidable.

My T-shirt got damp. This was ridiculous. She wasn't hurting me. I wasn't in pain.

"Are you OK?" she asked again. I told her I was OK, that it was mental, not physical. Time passed slowly. Five minutes. Fifteen. Thirty.

To distract myself, I watched "Good Morning America" on the TV. I tried to focus on whether ABC News was seriously airing a five-minute segment on a fashion magazine editor doing a "seven-day high-heel detox" by wearing flat shoes.

It didn't work. I kept sweating.

Finally, it was done and the relief was palpable.

I went into the next room to wait for the dentist.

Then I started to shiver. I had a chill, because I sweated to the point that my T-shirt was damp.

It's absolutely absurd. I'm a grown man who gets psyched out by doing something that never hurts.

Why is it? I don't know, but I do know that after my appointment, I relaxed because I was six months from the next sweat-in-the-chair session.

Actually, I sweated so much that I should have gone home and showered. Which would be nice, because when I'm standing in the shower, it's easier to get out of there before the drain sucks me to a horrific death.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.