This was originally posted on blogger. When your mouth is numbed, your body can do remarkable things. You can sit in the dental chair and see the miniature chainsaw going inside you. You can sit still as a wrench is fixed on your tooth and it twists, twists, and all you feel is a slight cranking of your jaw. You can snort with laughter (and concern) at the fact that surgery is an art more than a science. You can wonder thirty minutes in whether the dentist is pulling out the wrong tooth, but then think that it’s too late to ask. You can feel blood trickling down your throat and not know whether they actually nicked your tongue and are just good at covering it up. You can shout “nice catch!” when the third and last shard of your wisdom tooth falls out into your throat, but the dentist technician catches it with a heroic use of suction. You can marvel at how it only cost 50 NTD to get your mouth sliced open. You can go home right after and put your detached tooth right in the fridge, where it now belongs.