THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 90 lines
THE DENTIST looked into my mouth one morning with one eye closed and the expression of a man who is looking into a hole where a rat has just disappeared.
He probed a little pointed tool into my gums, knocked at a tooth with the handle now and then, making little noises.
``Ummm,'' he said. ``Uh-oh,'' he muttered. ``A-hah,'' he declared as he skipped the tool from tooth to tooth the way I did years ago as a boy when I jumped from tombstone to tombstone in a Confederate cemetery in Mississippi.
Then he squeezed a long molar in back and wiggled it, tossing the tool to a porcelain tray with a clank.
Even before he told me his verdict, I was depressed by thoughts of my mortality. Dentists' offices tend to do that. All those teeth like tiny tombstones in your mouth. I had come a long way from the days of the tooth fairy.
An extremely long way, actually.
As a child I remember tying one end of a string to my loose tooth, the other to a doorknob, hoping that the next person to open the door would extract my tooth. Placed beneath the pillow in a tissue wrapper, it would fetch big money - up to a quarter for a big one - from the tooth fairy.
The dentist used words like ``centrals' and ``No. 13'' and ``No. 8.'' But the upshot was that my mouth was like a house that might collapse at any moment without a major renovation.
He was said the top floor would need supporting timbers, and walls would have to be knocked out, various buttresses erected - with replastering necessary throughout - and a general shoring up on the bottom floor with additional struts and beams.
When I asked how much all this might cost, he referred me to his assistant, who punched at buttons resembling numbered teeth on her calculator. Then she cited a cost that would be the equivalent of the tooth fairy's budget worldwide for a year.
``Why that's as much as a used car costs!'' I said.
She shrugged, said I could simply let all my teeth fall out and put in dentures. I told her that dentures were not something I wanted because I didn't believe in removable body parts - particularly those that grin back at you from a glass.
I told the dentist's assistant I'd think about it. I did more than that. I dreamed about it. One night I dreamed that I was in the dentist's chair and he had a metal brace around my lips and was actually pushing one of those old Cadillacs with tail fins into my mouth.
I really dreaded all of it. Not just the expense but the pain and the grinding, grinding, grinding. But I decided to go through with the renovation because I like my dentist. He's one of those dentists who knows a coward when he sees one, and he sized me up from the first day.
He is not my first dentist. I found him after several tries. Dentists, I have found, are not the most observant professionals.
For instance, it has always seemed to me that a dentist should be able to tell whether he is inflicting pain or not. They should teach that sort of thing in dental school, for Pete's sake.
But do they know? Not many, I've found.
I tell you, many times I have been inflicted with such terrible pain from a dental tool striking a nerve that my entire body has stiffened, with my extremities sticking out, my legs splayed and suspended in mid-air, my arms extended with every finger spread as if by electrical shock.
And yet, unbelievably, the dentist would pause when that happened and ask in the most surprised voice: ``Oh? Did that hurt?''
Incredible! Of course it hurt, you fool!!
A 3-year-old with no dental experience whatsoever could have witnessed my body language and immediately pronounced me: ``Man hurt bad!''
But not the dentist. He's still in doubt about it. Hasn't figured it out, is still asking a question. Amazing.
My mouth renovation project has been, well, no walk on the beach, if you know what I mean. But I'm getting through it OK.
That's because my dentist believes in novocaine. He has put more shots in my upper mouth than Michael Jordan takes in a season. Which is good. When my mouth has the feeling and sensitivity of an butcher's block, I give him the go-ahead signal.
My dentist also has a cheerful staff. That helps, too. Every day they all wear the same kind and color T-shirts and slacks. The team concept, you know.
My last session under the drill was Thursday. It lasted almost two hours. Not too bad. That day, Halloween, the dentist and staff wore white shirts with skeletons and goblins on them. I guess they don't make any shirts with tiny dentures grinning in water glasses like the ones my grandfather left soaking on his nightstand. That would be a lot more frightening.
I remember seeing those boogers as a child. Hoo-boy. Talk about scary. Worse than a Stephen King movie. ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration By Janet Shaughnessy/The
Virginian-Pilot
I don't believe in removable body parts - particularly those that
grin back at you from a class. by CNB