The Whole Tooth
A nine o'clock appointment with the dentist this morning. Just a check-up. This is a sign of my new, improved and mature attitude towards dental health. Usually I go to the dentist after a fortnight of pain, having used the "hope-it-goes-away-by-itself" method and then dangerous doses of over-the-counter painkillers.
So this morning I was feeling a bit smug as I lay there on the reclining chair exchanging witty banter with the man in the white coat.
"Just give me a quick once-over, " I quipped, "but don't feel you have to look too hard."
Ho ho ho. Next thing he's talking to me about leaky fillings and I have to arrange two more appointments in the next week. That took the smile off my face. Well, that and the three fingers he had inside my mouth.
I have a long and terrible history with dentists. I had terrible teeth as a child. A calcium deficiency they say was to blame. I spent years going back and forth to the Glasgow Dental Hospital where various students used me as some kind of test-case. Other patients would be left unattended while a crowd gathered around my open mouth in open-mouthed amazement. They'd poke around my gums with fingers and mirrors and needles. After many months a consultant admitted there was very little they could do and told me to stop wasting everyone's time. I left the building before he had the chance to call security.
As the years passed I've waited for advances in dental science to offer me the chance of an Osmond smile. I want to munch into an apple and leave the perfect bite-shape, just like in the toothpaste adverts. Instead any apple I bite on looks like it's been smashed against a cheese grater. Many times I've suggested to my current dentist that he rip out what remains of my teeth and give me some shining artifical replacements.
"Everyone says that", he says, with a sigh, "but you'd just be exchanging one set of problems for another."
I suppose he's right and I reckon most dentists with ethics would say the same thing.
Now where can I find the other kind?
