Teeth Checkup

I went to my dentist this morning to have my teeth inspected and my gums probed and prodded by sharp-pointed instruments of dental torture. The dentist had moved to a new location and today was only the fifth day that he and his staff had been in the new building. I had no trouble finding the building; his staff had mailed me a postcard advising me of the new address. However, they neglected to put the suite number on the postcard, and this building has many medical suites. I ended up pulling out my phone and calling them for directions. A minute later I was parking in front of their new office.

The old office had a cuspidor beside the dentist’s chair – also called a “spit bowl” by ordinary pilgrims such as myself. Apparently spit bowls are now considered curiosities more suitable for museum display than for use in a dentist’s office. The hygienist told me that when a substitute dental assistant came into the old office, she (the sub) would take a photo of the cuspidor to show the gals back at her office, many of whom had never seen such a thing. In lieu of “rinse and spit”, now the hygienist hoses down your teeth with a squirt of mouthwash and then has you wrap your lips around a suction pipe which sucks the liquid out of your mouth.

My first ten minutes in the dentist’s chair were spent listening to the hygienist and another gal grapple with data entry on a computer screen. All patient information is stored on a computer now, and judging from the amount of time they had to spend waiting for a response to each mouse click, they’re using a machine from the Dark Ages powered by a small rodent running inside an exercise wheel.

After entering data into the world’s slowest computer, the hygienist got down to business, and for 40 minutes she poked, probed, scraped, and polished. Then the dentist entered the room to conduct his own inspection of the ivories. He immediately asked if I had a “nice Thanksgiving.” I said, “No.” He took it in stride. It turns out that when people ask if you had a nice Thanksgiving, a nice Christmas, a nice Whatever, they don’t really care. Why maintain the pretense?

Finally, I paid the ransom they requested and was allowed to escape with my teeth for another six months. I always hate to eat after a dental cleaning. My teeth feel so clean and pristine, it seems wrong to get them “dirty” by chewing food. But I stopped by the food store and assembled a salad at the salad bar, and took it home, and used my newly polished choppers on it. Then I used them on leftover pizza. They don’t feel pristine now, but they do feel comfortably broken-in, so it’s all good.