My teeth are mighty! I met with an oral surgeon this morning for a consult. In contrast to the "OMG your wisdom teeth are ticking time bombs!" speech I've gotten from my other dentists, this guy told me I'm one of the lucky 10 or 15% of people who have teeth small enough and a jaw roomy enough to accommodate wisdom teeth without much difficulty. Indeed, three of my four wisdom teeth are fully erupted and just dandy, and it's only the lower left one that has trouble. It's partially grown over by gum tissue, which makes it prone to infection. The doc said there's a good chance it'll get infected again, but that if I brush it hard and swish vigorously with salt water every day for the rest of my life, I can reduce the chance of infection and keep all my wisdom teeth and forego surgery altogether.

But, since I'm basically a lazy person -- and since that infection earlier this month was so damn unpleasant -- I went with his other suggestion, which is to remove the upper and lower wisdom teeth on just the left side, leaving the ones on the right intact. (The upper left tooth is okay, too, but if you take out the bottom one, it's best to take out the top one, lest it migrate.) Taking out only two teeth is -- naturally -- half as expensive as taking out all four, so this procedure won't make nearly as big a dent in my next novel advance check. Hurray! I go in for surgery in about a month. Nitrous and painkillers, here I come.