A Trip To The Dentist
In which I do a trivial thing, then complain about it
So I’ve just gone back to the dentist again after several years in hiding, this is a new dentist, I stopped going when I found out that my old dentist was being investigated by Fair Go. But this guy is supposed to be good, despite having his surgery in Avondale, and the fact that it is in Avondale, although distasteful, means he’s cheaper than he would be in a nicer suburb. I can say these disparaging things because I used to live in Avondale for years, and irreproachable oral hygiene has never been a cornerstone of its reputation. Giant spiders and high school stabbings, on the other hand . . .
Anyway. I go in today to get a small filling in a molar, and to have my chipped front tooth fixed from where it got hit with a bottle (I lived in Avondale for years). My memories of being at the dentist are vague, just about repressed by time and that default revulsion we all had drilled (sorry) into us by cruel, bitter school dental nurses. Do they still have school dental nurses? I wonder. They probably got rid of them along with Bibles In Schools, that great institution that convinced me, at an early age, that God lived in the Carrington Mental Hospital. I must look into that. After a short wait in which I try to figure out what the waiting room smells like, I get shown into the surgery. Mouthwash and fear, I eventually concluded. The dental assistant is very young and very pretty, dark hair and cute glasses, I immediately lose the power of speech.
‘Hi there,’ she says.
‘Mm,’ I say.
‘If you just want to take a seat?’ She gestures at the dentist’s chair.
‘Mm,’ I say, and blush. I remind myself that this is Avondale, she’s almost certainly got three kids at home and a nasty scar from where her Escort-driving boyfriend pushed her down some stairs.
The dentist comes in and introduces himself, makes small talk about my job, I lie to make it sound more like a proper job. He looks like the sort of man your dad would work with, they wouldn’t be friends exactly but they’d be colleagues and get on well in that capacity and not really do things together on the weekends. I’ll bet you anything he doesn’t live in Avondale.
‘So, it’s a filling and that chipped front tooth today, is that right?’ he asks. For a second I panic and convince myself that he doesn’t know, he’s genuinely asking, that if I say the wrong thing he’ll just go ahead and do terrible things to my teeth.
‘Mm,’ I say.
‘Good. Let’s get started then, shall we?’
They cover my mouth with a sheet of purple rubber with my teeth poking through it so that water and bits of filling don’t go down my throat, it seals my mouth airtight so I have to breathe through my nose. Have you ever seen that bit in The Matrix where Agent Smith makes Neo’s mouth go all sort of goopy and closed? It was like a cross between that and a gimp mask. I try not to think of bondage paraphernalia while the pretty dental assistant is leaning over me.
Actually while we’re on the topic, such as it is, let me relate a text message I got sent a few months ago from a friend while she was walking to work:
Haha i just walkd past ths sex shop and theres a ‘sexy’ metallic blue corset thng with ‘9 out of 10 dentists recommend oral sex’ embroiderd on it. Is it meant 2 b a sexy dentist costume? I dnt undastand!
Neither do I, even with such a cute girl hovering on my peripheral vision. Her job as a dental assistant has got to be the least sexy thing about her, out of the few things I know about her. And her boss, although very congenial and professionally capable, has all the wild romantic charm of Jim Bolger. Is it the fact that they spend so much time with their hands in people’s mouths, is that the appeal? Ugh. I don’t see it. I refuse to believe that ‘dentist’ is a legitimate fetish.
Dentistry is basically like masonry, but on a smaller scale. He sorts out my front tooth which seems to involve a brief moment of applying goop, then lots of time buffing and scraping the goop into a tooth shape. There’s a machine that looks like a tiny sander/polisher thing, and I swear to God at one point it sounded like he asked his assistant to pass him the sandblaster.
It doesn’t actually take that long and pretty soon it’s done. As I leave I smile at the dental assistant, but part of my face is still numb so it comes out of more of a sneer. This is not at all what I wanted. Also I may have dribbled a tiny bit. I go out to the waiting room, cursing my life and wiping my mouth.
After the dentist I have a visit to the oral hygienist in the next room who is quietly polite in a way that only middle-aged Asian women can be. The oral hygienist’s job is to clean and polish my teeth and as far as I can tell the bulk of this involves filling my mouth up with water and stabbing me in the gums. Then she flosses my teeth which she needs to put both her fists in my mouth for. Until I’m old enough to need regular prostate checks this is as violated as I will be by a professional. Is this what the dentist fetishists are into? I haven’t checked the prices but surely a real prostitute would be a lot cheaper. After she’s finished she compliments me on my oral cleanliness but suggests I use mouthwash for the next few days as my gums are a little inflamed at the front, I resist pointing out that they were absolutely fine before she began stabbing them. She says that she looks forward to seeing me again in six months and I laugh quietly at her optimism.
When I’m all set to go I ask the receptionist if there’s any forms I need to fill out.
‘What sort of forms?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d need to sign something?’
‘Um, no. Like what?’
‘I dunno, whenever I go to the doctor or the dentist or whatever I just assume there’ll be forms to fill out.’
‘No, there’s no forms.’ She looks at me like I’m an idiot.
‘Oh.’ I check surreptitiously to see if I’m dribbling. Then I go home.
What did you think would happen? That there’d be some dental-related disaster, all my teeth would explode, I’d accidentally swallow a drillbit? Or maybe the dental work would go fine, my teeth would be perfect, looking great and able to chew through plywood, but then I’d go outside and the dental assistant’s boyfriend would be waiting for me, somehow he’d seen me leer at her and so then he punches me in the face, ironically knocking out the front tooth I’d just had fixed? Then again maybe it’ll be a happy ending, the said dental assistant would declare her profound love for me and we’d gallop off into the sunset? Come on people, she’s seen my teeth. None of these things happened. As it was I went home and had a sandwich, and it felt a bit weird chewing but not problematically so. It’ll probably be fine by dinner.