1999 march 17

public service announcement

stick with me to the end of this one, the teeth you save may be your own.

i went to the dentist yesterday for my six month cleaning. i was assigned the chair of a new hygienist, at least new to my dentist's office. she looked to be at least sixty although she may just have that old look one gets from too much sun, and upon first glance i thought to myself, "dental nazi."

i was most correct in my assessment. there was a coldness to her demeanor and an extreme deliberateness to her motions, a deliberateness that bordered on slow motion. everything was very controlled, so as not to waste one iota of energy, and it took her ten minutes to take the four xrays. finally she lowered the chair.

before she sat down to inflict her torture, she paused in front of the mirror. a tug on the jacket here, a hunching of the shoulders there, a slight patting of the hair to make sure it was in order, then on with the rubber gloves: snap! she did not put on a protective mask, which surprised me, but the more i thought about it the more i believed no self respecting virus would care to jump down her throat. she turned, and looked out the window. "it's a beautiful day. we appreciate it."

i answered, "i'd appreciate it more if it would wait to be beautiful until saturday." she glared at me, then sat down.

i'd spent the previous fifteen minutes steeling myself for the pain i knew was to follow, and sure enough, she was a gum poker. you know the sort, never content to merely scrape the plaque off the teeth, they feel the need to jab those sharp metal tools into soft gum tissue as often as they can. then they have the audacity to cluck their tongues and murmur things about bleeding gums, not enough flossing, bad bad patient. she was completely silent through most of the cleaning.

she'd finished the backs of the teeth, and most of the fronts, when she pushed back from me and asked abruptly, "do you eat sweets? candies? ALTOIDS????"

i had to confess i had sucked on an altoid or two in my lifetime.

"well, don't ever eat them again. they're murder on your teeth, sheer murder. worse than anything else i've ever seen. i know people who've had thousands of dollars of dental work, get their mouths all fixed up right and proper. they come back in two years later and all the dental work is there and fine but the teeth have rotted right away from it. altoid eaters, every one of them. i've seen a brother and sister, healthy as can be, could be on the cover of magazines, and their molars were just shells! shells! all the insides eaten away. and why? altoids! they ate them everyday!"

"oh really," i said meekly, or perhaps deferentially might be a better word, you just don't want to aggravate someone who is going to head into your mouth with small sharp instruments at any moment, "you'd never know it would you? there's no warning on them."

"exactly! and they're always at the checkout stand, aren't they? right where everyone can grab a box of the dental death before heading home! every time i'm in line, i feel it is my solemn duty as a hygienist to warn everyone in line about the evils of altoids."

"well, i know i won't be eating one anytime soon."

"good for you. and tell your friends."

consider yourselves warned.

horrified at the thought of all the teeth rotting the world over, claire