If wisdom teeth are so smart, why are mine coming in sideways?

In a little under a month, I am going to be sedated and all four of my mandibular third molars are going to be yanked, nay, torn from their nesting place inside my jaws.

Wisdom teeth, as they're called, are a sort of russian-roulette entrance exam for adulthood. They're teeth that come in much later than your others, that occasionally do so without problems, but often cause havok on their way in.

I started feeling them coming in when I was about 20, so I figured I was lucky, but apparently am not. An x-ray earlier this year showed that they were coming in sideways and would either impact against my other teeth and hurt like candied death, or be just fine.

An x-ray this morning showed that from the way they're headed, it wont be long before the pain starts.

I'm always wary now when dental professionals tell me I need an expensive procedure, especially very common ones. When I was younger, my parents were duped by an orthodontist into getting me braces I really didn't need (my bite pattern is identical now to how it was before). It seems like wisdom-teeth pulling is one of those things dentists love to charge you for, like car dealerships and their underbody sealants, and when I was told the first time I should get them pulled I took a "wait and see" approach.

It's been 6 months, and I've waited and I've seed.

The path to impaction is set. Left unabated, those suckers will continue to grow sideways and will push my existing teeth into themselves. I've already got symptoms of impaction. I also have a cavity in one of the wisdom teeth, because it's impossible to get a toothbrush up there, so whenever I have anything sweet it's like a shooting gallery of pain.

Pull them out, I say.

Plus, since I'm still in my twenties I've still got young-people healing powers. If I waited until I was older and the pain really started, the extraction would put me out of commission for over a week. Now, I'm told I should be back to normal in a weekend.

There's something I like about finding something that will hurt later and removing it before it does.

It might be strange to have a doctor tell you that in 10 years your appendix will get infected and rupture, so they might as well take it out now while you're young and know you have insurance. It might sound like a sales pitch. It would be different, though, if they knew for certain.

If a doctor said there was a 70% chance that my appendix would rupture in 10 years, I probably wouldn't have the surgery now. If it was 100%, though, I'd probably just get it over with.

There is a 100% chance that my wisdom teeth are going to hurt, hurt a lot, in the next decade.

I wish there were more things that could be predicted with full certainty and removed, but wisdom teeth and appendices are really the only things you don't really need in the first place.

And tonsils.

And spleens.

Take them all out at birth, I say, them and that dreaded foreskin.

If this extraction is without immediate positive results, I should remind myself that I'll at least be getting a prescription for Vicodin out of it. Vicodin. Love it.