I just had a root canal. I went in at 9:30 AM and came out at 10:25. Cost me $1,900. It was worth it, particularly since I have dental coverage… I think.

Root canal has come a long way. The X-Ray, for instance, is digital. No film. They shoot, and up on a TV screen pops my tooth, which I broke on a piece of chicken over the weekend.

Don’t ask me how you break your tooth on a piece of chicken. All I know is that I heard a crunch and there was that weird feeling that everything was not okay. I realized I had just eaten the most expensive piece of chicken in history. The Novocaine, if that’s still what they use, was injected via a mechanical needle of some kind that calculates the resistance of your muscles and calibrates itself accordingly. It didn’t hurt. I mean, it didn’t feel good, mind you, but it was not the whole Marathon Man experience that you’d expect.

After a few minutes, they went in there. They were done three songs into Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man, which I selected as the album I wanted pumped into my head via the Bose noise-cancelling headphones they provided to make my stay in the chair more comfortable. It was all over by the end of “There Ain’t No Cure for Love.”

I went into the little office afterwards and they ran my card for $1,900. “We’ll handle your insurance company and they’ll send you a check,” said Ellen, who runs the business end of the place.

“Right,” I thought. And that was that. I have to go back in a couple of weeks for a following up. In the meantime, I’m really looking forward to getting that check for $104 from Aetna.