I brush my teeth, floss when the spirit moves me, and see my dentist more or less regularly.
Dr. Tooth and I have a deal whereby I get my teeth cleaned and x-rayed and she tells me to come back in six months. Or whenever I feel like it. She doesn’t actually say that but, generally, that’s how it goes down.
It’s a good system and other than a few See’s candy induced cavities and the departure of some wisdom teeth (an experience that involved much shrieking, Novocain, and fermented grapes) my mouth and I have lived together harmoniously for lo these many years.
But now (cue the theme song from The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly which you can click on this link to hear https://goo.gl/nKK81s) there’s a new dentist in town.
This dentist decided I needed something called a “crown.” I told her I already have a tiara (from my days as the Pulse Princess) but she was not amused. I got signed up for not one but two crowns and was halfway to an extraction before I snapped out of my dental-chair paralysis and started paying attention.
I usually figure the experts know what they’re doing and I leave them alone to do it. But this woman was coming on strong and trying to stampede me into a lot of dental work to be done as soon as possible.
Mind you, until I walked through the Dental Portal of Spamgrinder Alterations my teeth seemed to be working fine. I wasn’t in pain and I was able to enjoy my daily ration of coffee and ice cream (no, neither of these involve chewing but problem teeth sometimes object to hot and cold ingestibles).
And did I mention the new Dr. Tooth was putting the squeeze on me? And did I mention she was gorgeous? She had Pretty Woman’s Disease, a condition in which your looks pretty much dictate everything you do, particularly how you deal with other people, a.k.a. Lesser Mortals.
That’s when I started gritting my teeth.
So fast forward to my next encounter with Dr. Tooth. By then I’d gotten my second wind and had made an appointment with another dentist. I wanted a second opinion and I wanted Dr. Tooth’s clinical notes, recapping the renovations she wanted to make to my mouth.
Dr. Tooth’s Helpful Office Manager answered my phone call and assured me she’d get the info I needed and call me back “in 15 minutes.” I felt good about that, until the next day when I got tired of waiting and made a personal visit to Dental World. (Motto: “If you have a problem we’ll fix it. If you don’t have a problem we’ll find one to fix.”)
Now I’m sitting across the desk from Helpful Office Manager who apparently is not surprised to see my unscheduled self and who has no memory of the call-back on her to-do list. In fact, she’s busy assuring me that she doesn’t have any dental notes to share. Nope, none. Sorry. Yet she’s reading me something off her computer monitor. And darned if it doesn’t sound like clinical notes.
That’s when I started grinding my teeth.
So, we go back and forth and HOM gives me a pen and sticky-note pad to scribble down what she’s reading on her monitor. I’m getting quite a little stack of scribbles and I’m getting tired of this.
I suggest she print out what she’s reading. She demurs telling me that I have all the information I need. I tell her to humor me and print off what she has. I say “please” instead of “or else.” Finally, finally, she does. I get what I came for and I’m ready to leave.
That’s when I bared my teeth. “Oh,” I say, “and, no, you don’t need to call me back.”
The Upstory 