You Can Spell Orthodontist Without Conspiracy, But They're Still Related

The orthodontists are a bunch of con artists (orthocons, that's a good one, I just thought of it) who are trying to steal your money. How is this done? Well I'm glad you asked, I will tell you exactly how.

First, they tell you what your teeth are going to look like in twenty years (this reminds me of the people who tell you what the weather will be like in 50 years but who fail to accurately give me what it'll be like on Thursday). Well, I've had a fair few procedures done concerning my teeth. I've had four (count them: 4!) root canals. This is not due to my mildly obsessive love of skittles (I asked) but instead due to some "unknown trauma, likely when I was younger." So what they're telling me is that I had an abscessed tooth and cysts in my gumline (as painful or more painful than it sounds, especially during exam week) because I had an injury when I was too young to remember (convenient) or an injury when I was older (which I don't remember, possibly because of the same "trauma," also quite convenient). Either way, my parents and I have searched our memories and the worst injury I endured when I was younger or otherwise was a bruised psyche when Dinosaurs went off the air (I want it back!).

And yet, I began to use my Holmes-ian deductive skills and I said, "what do those four teeth have in common?" My conclusion: they are the teeth that are retained by my lower retainer. Coincidence? Yeah, you could say that, but only if you analyze it in a specific way. On that note, lets look at the word "coincidental."

Incidental, is a mixture of "incident" (a word used to downplay a serious occurrence. Example: when Hitler started to take over, there was an "incident" in Poland) and "dental" (a word that obviously pertains to the field of teeth). So, "incidental" quite literally means "the downplay of a serious circumstance pertaining to the field of teeth." And when you slap "co" on there, that just confirms it. "Co" naturally meaning "affiliated with" examples include: co-conspirators, co-mutineers, and co-Legion of Doomers (Justice League beware!).

So is it a coincidence that my retainers once resided over the teeth that are now dead? I suppose it is, yes. But that's not the only "coincidence." These things also coincidentally cost a lot of money. Imagine that. In fact, a friend of mine (who happens to be another victim of the Orthocons, which rhymes with Decepticons, the scourge of Earth in Transformers, just thought of that one too) had a chipped tooth once, so they gave him a root canal because the nerve was exposed. Well, a few months later they decided they just wanted to remove the tooth. With a full refund I'm sure (sarcasm, difficult to convey when typed).

I was forced to eat pudding, apple sauce, and yogurt over a period of two weeks because of my cystorcism. I was just starting to like those again after the wisdom teeth removal of '04. Now, let's give the Orthocons a little credit, and say that they didn't deliberately sabotage my mouth in order to make money (unlikely, but I have to exhaust all options). Well, my teeth had grown a certain way for so long, and thus allowed an infection to grow. SO, shouldn't they have seen that my teeth were growing in such a way somewhere on their magical twenty year timeline? My conclusion, therefore, is that they're either evil or incompetant. Either way I'd like my money back (more like my parents' money, thanks mom and dad!).

The entire Orthodontic industry is based in an actual service, for those who truly need some work done. An example of this is: "Your teeth are visibly crooked to the point that you need to get braces before it causes you extreme pain." An unacceptable reason is: "Your teeth in twenty years may or may not cause you a bit of pain, maybe." See, the problem is that since they have those letters after their name (the same letters that brought about the SAT, tacked-on letters are never good) which tell us, as patients, "whatever I say is the unequivocal truth." Because they went to a few more years of school than we did. Well, I've done some considerable thinking on this subject as well.

Doctors, dentists, lawyers, and all people who require extra years of school are not born with magical powers of healing (except Dr. Quinn of course, how else could she MacGyver all those people back to health?). They are the same people I see, day in and day out, who cram for tests and forget half of what they knew as soon as they leave the test room. They're the same people who had to cram because they only picked up every third word of a lecture through their hangovers. These are the same dunderheads I see every day who forget to staple their papers, act surprised when their meal costs money, and of course vacation in the infamous Australian Dessert. So how do I tell the difference between the orthodontists who actually know their stuff and the ones who cheated off of the ones who know their stuff? I guess the proof is in the proverbial pudding (I happened upon one of these when I couldn't eat solid foods, that's when my moment of clarity occurred).

So, are all orthodontists evil? Probably, yes. Dentists, on the other hand, seem to be okay aside from their sadistic natures. My dentist is quite a nice fellow, who shares a name with an archbishop from way back in the day. The guys who actually performed my procedures? Very nice people. The orthodontists? Crazy people, they tightened my braces one too many times and now I want retribution. I strongly suspect that their "cut" of the money they receive for referring myself and others to the sensible -ists is fairly considerable. But now I'm onto them, so fear not, parents. Because you might not have to pay a fortune for those braces after all, I suspect that after I bring down their corrupt organization we'll discover the secret to fixing your own teeth, hidden in the annals of their endless forbidden knowledge. I know it exists, I saw it at the end of Raiders.