Something that tastes that funky ought to be covered by my insurance!

If you've ever wondered how they make a crown, I really can't tell you.

What I can tell you is that I was roused from my nitrous-oxide stupor by the assistant shoving what looked like a garden trowel full of blue hair gel into my mouth and telling me to bite down. As soon as I did this stuff started setting up like Jello on steroids. Then you find out why it's applied with something that looks like a graden trowel. The assistant parked the heel of her hand on my forehead, took the handle in her other hand and pulled that hardened mess free.

Then she gets out a chunk of plastic and a drill like the one they use at the nail salon, she checks the gaping place in my mouth where a tooth used to be and then she starts fashioning me a temporary plastic tooth. As I'm still coming out of the nitrous she is giving me instructions. I can barely understand them because Billy Idol is screaming someting about a Rebel Yell at me through the headphones. (Seriously, I've been going to this dentist for eighteen years, I've been listening to the same tape of music for eighteen years.) Anyway, no chips, ice, carrots or anything else hard for at least twenty-four hours until the funking tasting cement (that she managed to slop into evey corner of my mouth) has had time to cure. Cure? Like in a ham? Anyway, be careful with this "replacement tooth" (read: fake-assed peice of plastic) because sometimes they break and we'll have to fit you with a new one. We'll call you when your crown comes back from the lab.

So, two weeks later, more drilling, more Billy Idol, lots more nitrous oxide and more of the God-awful funky tasting cement I have been crowned.

But, what exactly am I queen of?