The Boogeyman Wears a White Coat

The Boogeyman is said to be the embodiment of terror. In fact he lives off of fear. So what better way to make sure you survive other than creating fear.
Maybe I'm the Boogeyman. I love scary movies and Halloween. I love scaring people. True fear is a real emotion that people cannot control. To look into their eyes at that apex of emotion is to look into their soul. But in order to instill fear into somebody you must set it up perfect. I go to great lengths every Halloween to set the stage and peer into the soul of those who would cross my path. But that is only once a year. A true Boogeyman scares people year round.

Throughout my life I have not been the luckiest of individuals when it comes to oral care. It started young, around 8 years of age, that I met Dr. Pains. The tell-tale sign of this venture, other than his name, was the fact that he worked out of a strip mall in Homestead. This sadist had a thing for needles and thought nothing of poking you a minimum of 10 times. And that was just for a cleaning! Dr. Pains had a devilish grin that curled above his goatee each time he drove a hypodermic onto your flesh. To say that I feared the man is to say that I think coffee is okay.

Now the dentist's office is littered with paraphernalia just to cause fear. Pamphlets with decay and disease strewn amongst out of date magazines. Models and posters of teeth gone wrong prominently displayed.
But to set the stage for fear you must incorporate all the senses. Like the smell of a dental office; the fine powder of enamel and dentin and pulp cause a scent that cannot be duplicated in any other setting. The sound; in between the tinny crackling melody of Lite FM elevator tunes is the high-pitched shrill of the drill, a noise that is instant tinnitus to anyone not wearing scrubs or a white coat.
And you might as well throw in some victims who are ashen white and rubbing their jawlines as they stumble to the counter TO PAY FOR TORTURE! The receptionist is chipper as can be while she charges them and asks if everything is okay.
Okay? The poor sap is so juiced up with Novocaine he mumbles something that could be a complaint, but you can't understand him. Of course the receptionist smiles and nods and sends him on his way. Her gaze falls from him while exiting to you sitting with your leg pumping like a piston in a Ferrari.
She calls you up and directs you to a room or stall or closet or hostel with a strange looking recliner, metal trays, odd light fixtures, and a few items with hoses or cords slithering away from them. She tells you to have a seat and the "Doctor" will be with you shortly, which is a lie.
Come on, if we are going to set up the scene for fear then there must be some anticipation thrown in right before the Boogeyman appears. You're not supposed to expect him!
So, after you've read the same three little crappy signs ("Home is Where the Heart is" on a goose with a bonnet, "Live, Laugh, Love Often" on a heart, "Brush, Brush, Brush!" on a tooth) ad nauseam, you decide to take a nap, only to feel his presence behind you.
You turn with a jerk as he tells you to lean back and begins to lower the chair. Like you're not in a vulnerable enough position, he leans it back far enough that you feel you will slide out of it head first.
He tells you to open wide and comes at you with some metal pick thing and starts prodding around. He asks if it hurts when he does this, grips you by the face and jams the pick into the exposed nerve in your mouth. You flail helplessly on the chair attempting to scream, but the saliva that's collected at the back of your throat (now you know why they lean that chair so far back) stops it from happening. Pure genius, in an extreme evil kinda way.
Then he says, "Want to see something really scary?"
And you think "NO, I've seen that movie", but he shows you anyways. He shows you that the tooth Dr. Pains fixed all those years ago, yeah, that crap is no good and needs to be redone. These sickos are working together!
He then wipes a swab of Orajel around your gums to help with the needle he's coming at you with. Really, if Orajel was going to provide any sort of relief don't you think I would have jammed a tube of that crap in there before electing to enter the world of the deranged?
And of course you feel the needle and all its contents swelling in your gums. He injects so much of the crap it overflows to your taste buds.
He says he wants to give it a second to take effect and that's all the time he does. Next thing you know there's a DeWalt jammed in your yap and chunks of tooth are splintering across the room. And some insane assistant is slipping a soda straw hooked to a shop-vac into your mouth trying to suck your tonsils out!
Are you scared? Damn right you're scared! After the whole incident is over you tell yourself you're going to brush 5 times a day and floss after every meal. And you do! For about a week. Then six months go by and you get a phone call from the receptionist trying to schedule your checkup. She's talking to you like a siren calling to sailors and you think, sure why not, I've been taking care of my teeth. Haven't I?
But the Boogeyman knows better and he's waiting to scare the crap out of you. Hell, you're scared just at the thought of having to see the guy!