Dental Delight

I went to the Dentist a couple of weeks ago.

I hadn’t been for a while.

I’m not sure how long but I spent about 10 minutes in the office next door before I realized I was in the wrong place.

I thought those stirrups were inappropriate for a simple checkup and a cleaning…so after about 15 minutes I put my pants back on and left.

Anyway, last time I was there, my dentist, who’ll I’ll call my dentist, was telling me about his softball team and skiing in Aspen. Now he was telling me about his grandchildren and new condo at the assisted living facility.  Apparently there’s a great spread at the happy hour.

So a lot had changed. 

It takes a certain kind of person to be a dentist. To be honest I can’t think of a more…”unsettling”…profession.  I mean sticking your fingers in people’s mouths all day, and then having them bite your fingers to boot.

I mean I can’t help it; I have a sensitive gag reflex.

If I was a dentist I would be gagging all the time.  So probably that’s why I’m not. I doubt I would have many returning customers. So it’s just as well…because of the gagging.

Anyway, I’m happy to report…look ma, no cavities….

Which just annoys Z to no end.

Z is very meticulous about her teeth.  She’s got this special super-duper electric toothbrush that times the brushing. I think it even gives the time and temperature…and traffic and weather. Then she does the whole flossing thing. Then she actually sings to her teeth and tells them a story.

Nah, I’m just kidding. She only sings. It takes her about 2 or 3 hours to get through the whole process.

I, on the other hand, pretty much just get up and check if any teeth fell out onto my pillow during the night. If not, I’m good to go.

So you can see why she would get annoyed by my perfect assessment.

Actually, it wasn’t so bad, going. Like I said, it gave me a chance to catch up on things. My Dentist asked if I had any problems, and once I finished telling him about the run in I had with the old lady at the grocery store, and the uncomfortable situation with the Zombies and the Witches, he asked if I had any problems with my teeth.

I said, not that I was aware of, since I have very little feeling up there.

So he told me to open wide and he proceeded to pull my mouth open this way and that, until I felt  like a carp stuck on a hook. 

He asked if I wanted to watch what he was doing on TV since he had this cool little tooth cam device he was dying to use. I told him I’d rather watch Oprah than watch the inside of my mouth, but he misunderstood and showed me pictures of the inside of Oprah’s mouth, which he had in a drawer for some reason. This of course made me gag. But Oprah usually has that effect on me.

So after a bit of poking and prodding, he took up a hammer and chisel and proceeded to clean my teeth.  Of course he was nonchalant about the whole thing, except for the few times when he shouted out, “Sweet mother of Satan’s bastard child,” which I found odd, and had the receptionist come in to certify authenticity or something.

There was some back and forth small talk about sports and such where he would ask me what I thought of the World Series this year.

And I would answer, “grmplgh lutrefgu dou.”

Then he would bring up politics and the conversation would get a little heated while he was making his points and the chisel would go flying. 

He would apologize and start poking around again, and I would say, “grmplgh lutrefgu dou.”

But could you blame me?

Eventually he took a few X-rays, well kind of.  He uses these special kind of X-ray glasses that he says let’s him see through things. So he took a quick look and said I was good to go.

On the way out the receptionist asked if I wanted to set up my next appointment…and then we both had a good laugh.

What can I say?  I’m in good tooth.   I think it might be all those caramel apples.