I went to the dentist today, finally. I’ve lived in Manhattan over a year and had been putting it off because I’d had such an emotional attachment to my dentist in Cleveland. I’d toy with the idea of working in an appointment when I was back in Ohio visiting the family, but it never seemed to work out. Or maybe I just didn’t want to go to the dentist. I mean, who does, other than those people who brush and floss mornings, evenings and after lunch, or the ones who never get cavities no matter how lax their hygiene.
As a patient, I come from a short line of dentists with names both reassuringly brief and comical. First it was Dr. Blank and the one in Cleveland was Dr. Rinkel. My new dentist’s name is Dr. Stern and like the other guys, he’s anything but. It reinforces what nurses have known all along: MDs really are assholes, especially when you consider dentists are doctors, too, yet all the dentists I’ve known have been so animated that they would need only put on a rainbow wig to become the entertainment at a child’s birthday party.
Still, I get nervous going to the dentist. I went through several years of my life where every visit revealed another cavity. My appointment today began with a battery of oral x-rays and I wasn’t imagining the best. Every zap of photons would bring up a grossly enlarged digital photo on a computer monitor in my eyeline. I was glad the hygienist had me remove my glasses because I wasn’t keen on seeing any evil dark matter lurking in the images. And I wasn’t about to take up Stern on his offer to email me the images if I should so desire. Why would I need such pictures other than to scare small children into brushing or else look what will happen. To my relief, I didn’t require another filling to tip the total of 12 I already have to an unlucky number, although three of them do require replacing. I also got plenty of running commentary on that. No dentist seems to think any other dentist does things the right way and that extends to fillings. Everyone knows you don’t mix composite and silver fillings on the same tooth, Stern said. He had other issues with why certain fillings had been done a certain way, despite the fact that Rinkel was always so proud of his handiwork filling my cavities, I got the feeling that was all he bragged about to his wife over dinner, right up until the day she divorced him.
Dentists have their own way of cleaning, even. Stern quickly explained that my “cleaning experience” wouldn’t be with one of those traditional devices with the tiny, cup-shaped rubber-tip that you usually get because that wears down the enamel, according to him and probably his dental equipment salesman. So no caveman-like cleaning for me. I was treated to a newfangled procedure that is essentially sandblasting for the teeth, a jet of highly pressurized water mixed with some mysterious abrasive, the name of which he rattled off and that I think was aluminum flakes or something equally spaceage sounding. The spray kicked up and required the dabbing of my face with a wet-nap afterwards, which I’m familiar enough with at BBQ establishments, but less so at dentists. After the spraying, there was traditional scraping for “descaling” purposes and for poking around near my molars to dislodge ossified bits of items that had previously been really tasty. I guess it was a success because I had the typical boxer amounts of blood and tissue bits to rinse into the spittoon afterwards.
Stern wrapped up by trying to get me to switch to a mechanical toothbrush, one that he happened to have a sample of and a brochure for, with money saving coupons inside. Despite his protestations that Oral-B wasn’t occasionally slipping him large, crisp stacks of $20s, I felt like the Manhattan moviegoer, trapped in an air-conditioned room, reclining on a comfy chair, then suddenly subjected to 15 minutes of commercials and no practical chance for escape. I’m surely growing older because I gave his pitch some consideration, especially with the whole better-for-your-gums features of the mechanical toothbrush. At my age, he claimed, I don’t have to worry about cavities as much as I do gingivitis and other bacteria-inspired mayhem. At my age. I know what you older people (and younger people with worse teeth than mine, which I wouldn’t have thought possible) are thinking: he’s yet to experience the joys of root canals, bridgework and caps. And it seems not so long ago I enjoyed going to the dentist because I got those cool tablets to chew that turned all the invisible plaque on my teeth red.