He said "Gimme a break" so I showed him my watch

My son called yesterday afternoon. I needed to come pick him up because he'd broken a tooth. This has happened before.

When he was 10 or so, he went down a slide headfirst (yes, he'd been warned) and broke both his two top front teeth halfway up. The dentist was able to make a bonded filling to replace the half that was missing, but his teeth have been very sensitive ever since.

When I got there to pick him up, I asked him, "So, how did this happen?" He said he was rough housing with a friend and the guy's watch hit him in the mouth. (Better a watch than a fist, I guess.)

His tooth was broken way beyond halfway, and it wasn't a clean-across-the-bottom break, but it also broke in half vertically also, the back half of the tooth shearing off. Extremely exposed nerve. I called every dentist for miles, but it was Thursday afternoon, and apparently the dentists here close early Thursday so they can have Friday off. Must be nice. The nurse at our usual dentist's office was so helpful, trying so hard to find us somewhere to be seen, but no luck. She finally said, "Take him to the ER, they usually have a periodontist on call." I didn't know that.

They didn't. The doctor wrote him a prescription for pain meds and sent him home with a recommendation to get some beeswax to seal it for the night. He was able to get us an appointment with a dentist who told me they had no openings, though, so I guess it was worth the trip.

We just got back from the dentist. There's not a thing in the world he can do, and referred us to an endodontist for a root canal evaluation. Do I sense a theme developing with this child's dental issues? We'll see what the endodontist has to say. And the credit card company.