Today the dentist. Yes. Bleh.
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In Mexico City we had two dentists. One was a German woman and I will not say more about it. There are some things one does not like to think about. Having an impromptu filling without any anaesthetic is one of them. The second dentist was a nice Mexican woman who sterilized the tray and tools by rubbing alcohol on the tray, setting her instruments on it, and putting a lit match to it. That was a great way to start a dental appointment.
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She had an American husband, this Mexican dentist did, and he worked for the IRS at the embassy. One day we had them over for a meal and he showed up drunk and she showed up with a curious expression. He swore less as the food and coffee got to him and the evening wore on. I remember not being able to believe the guy was drunk. He was not doing too badly for all that, but he was clearly a few sheets to the wind, as they say.
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And so I always smile more than I have any real reason to smile when I go to the dentist. I have to keep stifling a smile and it galls me because I really hate the dentist. They probably wonder if I am a few sheets to the wind or if I am John Hartog III. Anyway, they get the idea that I am pleased and will talk to them and they always ask me about my book. When the dentist asked me how my summer was going I inadvertently smiled and said fine. She almost laughed.
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It is bad enough that they have to cause me egregious pain by ruthlessly poking at my gums and by attempting to wrench my jaw off in a sinister and bizarrely silent battle. And on top of it all I am lying down in that stupid chair that actually, I think, bends backward, or they crank it till it is backward just to have that much more of an advantage. That these people are always calm and soft spoken only makes it that much more intense and unreal. But the worst part is that I have to keep from grinning, fighting with myself, thinking morbid thoughts. It is probably this last that makes the whole experience into some kind of struggle. I always leave vowing to neglect all oral hygiene to spite them, to make it worse for them next time, to declare full and utter war.
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The usual lady who does the checkup afterward was not there so I had this silly other guy as a substitute. I have never been examined by having some guy take his fingers and try to pull my face off by the lips, stretching them to make sure they would slide smoothly over my cranium. And these are the nice people. I had another set of dentists but I could not take the emotional manipulation there. They always tried to make me feel guilty about things. At this new place they are fine if I floss regularly. At the old place they wanted me to floss all the time and do it a certain way; they taught me how to do it twice. They would talk about how I had really hard enamel and would shake heads and tell me about gum disease and how lucky I was to have really hard enamel and if I really wanted to help people with my life I should become a dentist.
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So, yeah; today the dentist.
Todd Mitchell
/ August 29, 2007Hilarious. I read this to the kids, just now, and was actually concerned my daughter was going to choke to death on her lunch because she was laughing so hard.
Joel
/ August 29, 2007Thanks! I’ve been trying to think how to improve and expand it. I want to turn it into a story like Dog Day.
Ryan Martin
/ August 29, 2007I have to schedule a dentist appointment. I was all set to go on July 3d around 5:00 PM when the Dentist called to cancel. Evidently they valued their own R&R more than the healthy of mouth.
Ryan Martin
/ August 29, 2007I have to schedule a dentist appointment. I was all set to go on July 3d around 5:00 PM when the Dentist called to cancel. Evidently they valued their own R&R more than the health of my mouth.
Kingsley Amis
/ August 29, 2007He had not bitten anything with his front teeth since losing a top middle crown on a slice of liver-sausage six years earlier, and the right-hand side of his mouth was a no-go area, what with a hole in the lower lot where stuff was always apt to stick and a funny piece of gum that seemed to have got detached from something and waved disconcertingly about whenever it saw the chance.
lilrabbi
/ August 29, 2007LOL