The Dentist

I've been going to the same dentist for about 12 years or more--twice a year for a cleaning and every couple of years he takes some x-rays. Once he popped a crown off near the beginning of the time I started going to him. That was such a tramatic experience that when he gets close to the crowns, I tense up, bracing myself for the pop. And it was not that it hurt so much as it was like having an old dirty sock (Karl's old dirty sock) in my mouth.



Anyway, the crown didn't pop off today, but I do have a tooth ache. I almost never have a tooth ache. I flossed in honor of having a dentist appointment and Howard (my dentist) said I probably flossed too hard. I'm still mulling that one over--how do you floss too hard? I mean I could understand if I cut myself flossing--a particularly daunting fear--the equivilent of a paper cut in between your teeth--ouch. But too hard?

So I know Howard from Kiwanis, but he left our club and so now I only see him twice a year for my check up. There is less and less to shoot the breeze about, but he still asks about my family as soon as he puts his hands in my mouth. You would think that a dentist--a guy that does this every day would learn that I can't answer a question with his hand in my mouth. Howard is a pretty nice guy, so I can't believe that he does it deliberately to be mean. My theory is that he is trying to remember stuff about me, because he too feels the slimness of our repartee. It takes him a little time to remember my favorite subject (my nieces and nephew and all the babies in my house).

Howard and I have this cleaning business down to a science. We have figured out the right amount of time in between spitting and swooshing. Still, he does all the work and I have a lot of time on my hands.

He has tiles on the ceiling that have random patterns of holes in them. The pattern is so random that they are not simply installed at different sides. I have a theory that there are only four patterns to the tiles and that they are randomly arranged, but one hour is too short a time to confirm that theory. But still I spend the hour trying to pick out patterns and find similarities. In the past I have tried to count the holes in each tile, but there are a lot. Some lines have 12 and others have 15 holes. This time I went with getting an estimate. There are twenty two lines and between 12 and 15 holes per line. It took me a little while to average 12 and 15 and then to multiply that by 22.

The other thing that I do to pass the time is to divide Howard's job into fractions and percentages. My mouth is divided into 12 parts, 6 on the bottem (three in front, three in back) and 6 on the top. Unfortuneately, Howard gets a little frustrated on the top teeth and he abandons his routine once in a while, but on the bottem teeth, he is a creature of habit. So I measure in 12ths. 1/12th, 2/12ths--hey that equals 1/6th, yippee. 3/12ths--that is 1/4th--we are 25% done, hurray! 4/12ths, wow, did you know that 4/12ths is 1/3rd? We have gone from 1/4th to 1/3rd really quickly--woo hoo. It is about this time that I remember that after he scrapes my teeth he goes through this awful routine of brushing the teeth (in the same quadrants) with his mechanical brush and rather unpleasant toothpaste (although I usually like cherry or orange flavor--put it on toothpaste and it is really disgusting). So 1/3rd must be converted into 1/3rd of 2/3rds if I estimate that the toothbrush part is 1/3rd of the dental visit. Wait. Yes, I went back to counting the holes in the ceiling tiles.

I am all done until August, but my tooth still hurts. I told Howard that usually I would go to see a dentist if my tooth hurt. He got a good laugh out of that one.