Adventures in Dental Hygiene

Let's make tonight a double feature, to make up a little lost time. (Tonight has turned into tomorrow, I see.) The evening's second entry, be the reader warned, is a rather personal journey into my own mouth. Please be advised that I spare no details. Read on or stop short accordingly.

Well, the padre scheduled me a dental checkup for this Christmas break, because what I actually wanted for Christmas was all my teeth, and not just my two front ones. Obligingly, my daddy booked me a gig with our new family dentist. One of the benefits of this situation is that the office is right in town (I live in a small town of about 6,000 people). Before, we had to drive 35 minutes to get up-to-speed on our pearly whites. No longer, my friends. Now I travel but a mere 5 minutes for the unparalleled pleasure of opening wide under the torture devices of a smiling hygenist.

My very favorite thing about dental hygenists is how nice they are. I don't think I've ever met one who wasn't just so sickeningly sweet. Think about it....have you? They just bubble and chatter while they sit there with their metal prongs and suction catheters in your mouth, and all you can do is grunt or "aaah haah" at their inane little stories...hoping all the while you don't squirt them with saliva or inadvertently gag on your spit...or some other equally charming thing. Usually while sitting there I think of witty interjections that might or might not have been appropriate to employ, had I the power of speech at that moment. This entertains me a fair bit...since really, the only thing you can do is stare up at the light above you, and look at all the little holes in the ceiling tiles. Intriguing.

So, it had been two years since I'd been to my last dentist, a really nice early 40's guy who was just starting a family and all excited about having his first kid. That was two years ago. Anyway, he was a pediatric dentist, or whatever they call them. Beside the point. Point actually being, I had some tartar apparently. Horrible! Tartar is something that old people get. And it's supposed to be really obvious, and nasty, and yellow. Right? Maybe not, because apparently I had some. Also, the hygenist told me, my wisdom teeth were not fully erupted, and my gums were showing some inflammation. She proceeded to take a metal tool to my teeth and vigorously scrape up and down along the gum line, all over my mouth. I was picturing in my mind gargantuan scrapes and gashes being ground into my enamel...that's what this felt like. Like someone taking a wire brush to the inside of your mouth. But apparently, this was just the ritual necessary to remove The Tartar. So be it. But for the record, I hate the taste of blood.

.....To be continued.