I don't want to be unique!

It finally happened. I had a wisdom tooth extraction (my first), and as a result found myself on the (operating?) table with a couple of ladies (the dental surgeon and the anesthetist) peering and poking around purposefully in my mouth. I was given local anesthesia and some nitrous (laughing gas - about which I shall write separately), so I had a semi-detached view of the proceedings, despite the fact that the scene of action was a scant few inches away from my brain.

While I was lying there, the very competent Dr Wang was poking around, chatting away with her colleague making comments like this:
"Ah Mr D, just relax now!"
"Come now, open wider!"
"Nice watch, Mr D, that's a very nice watch - please would you put your hand down now!"
"Come now, this tooth needs to come out!"
"Oh, it's a bit tough to pull!"
"I'm not that strong you know, just a woman! But let me try here, ummm..."
"Need to try harder, open wider please!"
"Ok once more, uuuhhhhhhhhhh, goodness, strong bones, eh Mr D?!"
"Hey maybe I need to do weight training or something, yeah, hahahahaha!"
"Ah, excellent, well done Mr D, it's out now!"
"What? You want to keep it? Nurse, Mr D would like to have his tooth back..."
(Yes, I asked for it)
(And thank you again, Dr. Wang!)
(Sidenote: Dr Wang did a great job. Then she left a voicemail for me that evening, she was checking in on me as promised. And she reviewed progress the next day with a quick 5 minute check-up, which was reassuring. I'd definitely recommend Dr Wang to anyone in the Bay Area, even though she doesn't do weight training. IMO, she doesn't need it!)

As I lay there helpless, the thought occurred to me that of all the situations I've been in, this is one where I don't want to be unique in any way whatsoever! And it's probably very true for all of us! We want to be unique everywhere except on the operating table, or in any medical context, right? Every time I interact with a doctor for anything I want to be the most boring, most routine, most typical and most predictable case s/he's ever come across. Because that's where it's safe to be...I'll leave all the outstanding medical curiosities for someone else to offer, thank you very much!

By the way, I was googling around about some aspects of this experience, and I came up with a web-site that offers training to become "affiliates", as a path to earning easy cash by riding on the "teeth-whitening craze". Check this out! Next time you want to have your teeth whitened you may want to find out what odd-job background that person about to address your (not-so?) pearly whites has had, and how much relevant experience too! Because quite honestly, the picture on the web-site doesn't inspire much confidence now, does it? What were these good folks thinking when they put that in?!