Dental Damn

According the Jerry Seinfeld, the only difference between dentists and sadists are newer magazines. I'm inclined to agree with him after yesterday's visit to the sterile torture-chamber where I elected to have my teeth cleaned.

I'd been reading Catcher in the Rye in the waiting room, and the dental hygienest complimented me on my taste. She asked me if I were reading it for school after sticking one of those things in my mouth they use when they give you X-rays, and smiled as I tried to articulate an answer. When she took it out, we chatted about how I had quit smoking since my last visit. She told me about her two-year old. She seemed like a real sweetheart.

But there was another side of her. A darker side. A side you don't even want to think about.

It first came to the surface when she produced a water pick from outside my peripheral vision. She was ruthless, this one, and she might as well have been tattooing my gums with it. I asked her if it were a pressure washer for your teeth after she "accidentally" sprayed me in the face with it, and she said "that's exactly the way I describe it to people!"

Then she took out one of those pointy devices they use to scrape the plaque off your teeth. I could see the smile widening behind her mask as she examined it, probably wondering what it would feel like to stab me in the eye. Allegedly, they call this device an explorer, which makes sense because she dug into my gum line like she was searching for buried treasure. My body tensed as she tried to scrape away what was left of my gums. She's just doing a good job, I told myself. From the amount of blood on her gloves, you would have thought she was performing open heart surgery. "Are you comfortable?" She asked.

"Yeah," I said, lying. I was about as comfortable as a prisoner of war.

Finally, she left the room. The dentist came in and prodded my teeth with her explorer, searching for cavities. She found three small ones, and wrote up a treatment plan that would cost me a fortune.

I thanked them for all of this, and thanked God that I wouldn't have to go back for another six months. Except, of course, to get the three fillings the dentist said she probably won't even need to numb me for.