A cancellation allowed me an overdue cleaning this morning, and while thirty minutes' notice wasn't nearly enough to practice opening wide or suppressing my gag reflex, I somehow managed to make it past biting down on those plastic frames for X-rays and really start my Happy New Year …or at least the good portion of it until my next appointment. I'm not sure just when I began reacting like this to the slightest intrusion into my mouth (could be that I hadn't cracked it for so long before that terrible ordeal with the abscess), but one thing is: I wouldn't be too popular in prison.