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Read on for a humorous story written by a patient about his CEREC crown experience.  The story was featured in his company's newletter.  Thanks for sharing Andy!

Sit Back and Relax: It’s Hi-Tech Dentistry
Just like an equipment fleet, my maintenance and operating costs increase as I age. One of my recent tune-ups found me in the dentist’s chair to have a tooth crowned. I’ve had a little dental work before, but not much. Though the trip to the tooth driller has not been one of my favorite outings, it has also not been something that I have dreaded, perhaps due to lack of any dental experience that was painful or uncertain. This recently changed.
My Just-Right Dentist
I have a great dentist. I don’t know him personally, but he fills me with confidence. He seems like a nice, successful guy, and he’s about the right age—well past the rookie stage, but far from the old-school type that isn’t attracted to technological improvements. He likely paid off his student loans a long time ago, but may not have the vacation home in Palm Beach yet. This age range is ideal in my opinion, as I think he has more than enough experience to get good results, does not need to proceed by trial and error and shows no signs of daydreaming about his next golf course outing. This dentist is focused and all business.  The dental office is new and Martha Stewart would approve of the waiting room décor: It’s very tasteful. The front office is well-organized and highly computerized—not much paper there. More importantly, dental technology abounds from the front door to the back, which I find highly appealing.
Needles and Numbness
Soon after I arrived at the office and checked in, Doc’s assistant guided me to the dental chair and positioned me for service as smoothly as a mechanic directing a car onto a Jiffy Lube grease rack. I quickly became quite comfortable in this chair —it was even more satisfying than my La-Z-Boy recliner at home—and recall fighting the urge to doze off as the pleasant dental assistant reviewed the agenda for my crowning process. With only a short delay, the molar repairman appeared. Using a magnum sized Q-tip, he applied a bubblegum-flavored gel to the excavation job site. When a light numbness set in, the dentist drafted Mr. Needle for duty, and I lost feeling from my ear lobes to my kneecaps. 
Fear Sets In
Next, the dentist brought out a hi-tech machine. Like a proud kid demonstrating a new model train set on Christmas morning, he inserted a newfangled gizmo in my pie hole and a digital photo session began. I could see a cart-mounted computer monitor out of the corner of my eye and I witnessed the digital tooth photos appearing on the screen. I first suspected the photos might be for the insurance company, since they document before and after conditions like the marketing staff at a weight loss center. I replayed my first conversation with the dental assistant, and it occurred to me that the digital images were somehow going to be used for a milling machine that would carve out a crown to match the real McCoy. This was when I began to get concerned.
Camera Crisis
As Doc clicked his gizmo camera, the sounds that acknowledge successful digital pictures changed radically. A piano-like, sustained tone emanated from the computer speakers with each new click. I had heard this sound before, when I clicked on a troubled computer mouse or on stuff that I shouldn’t. It’s not a good sound: It’s an omen of potentially big problems. The computer stopped responding and Doc said, “Hmmm, the machine has never done that before.”  Concerned expressions replaced previously puzzled looks from the latex-gloved, pajama-wearing tooth mechanic and his lovely helper. I tried to hide my nervousness by interjecting my warped humor. I suggested that we might still be OK as long as Doc didn’t get Blue Screen of Death from the nonresponding computer. Neither the doctor nor his assistant seemed amused and I began wishing for a sedative that would put me in the Land of Oz. However, a quick reboot of the Windows operating system seemed to remedy the problem and they completed the glamour shots. 
Master of the High-Speed Drill
I’m guessing that Doc’s infatuation with a Dremel tool in high school woodshop eventually led to his career choice. Faster than a gunslinger draws a revolver, Doc pulled the high-speed drill out of nowhere and went to work.  Confidence returned to his face. That screaming little grinder was like an extension of his body. Within a few minutes, he carved my defective tooth top down to half its size and created another impression.  The assistant then instructed me to sit back and relax while more hi-tech tools milled my new tooth.  I didn’t see this process, but, reflecting on my first career in tool and die, I could easily imagine what the machining process was like. I suddenly flashbacked on my tool and die days and remembered when a corrupt computer program made my milling machine start mowing off everything in its path. I now imagined the corrupt digital photos causing the dental machining center to run amuck.  I envisioned my new tooth looking like an inverted fang protruding from my lower lip and extending above my nostrils.  However, before long, Doc reappeared with a perfect tooth, squirted some super glue on it and jammed it over the top of the old tooth that he had so carefully shaved down. “There,” he said. “Good as new. You can resume normal chewing.”
Happily Crunching Once More
Nine hundred dollars later, while I enjoy a bag of corn nuts for the first time in a while, I give Doc credit. He is not only a pro with the Dremel tool, but also fairly handy with Bill Gates stuff.  While he may not yet have mastered the expressionless gestures used by Texas hold ‘em poker players, he definitely is a competent, technology-embracing, enamel excavator. I bet he got good grades in the high school woodshop, too.                                                                                           

Andy Merical, CEO

Hydro-Klean, Inc.

www.Hydro-Klean.com