If I were prone to quoting Seinfeld (which I’m not) I would call myself an “anti-dentite. This started when I was a child and my mother (being the good mom that she was) trotted my brother and I do the dentist every 6 months. Each of these visits always included the dreaded “fluoride treatment”. This entailed placing a foam mouth piece in your mouth filled with fluoride paste. In an effort to make this whole process seem like fun, you got to pick the flavor of the paste.
Bubble-gum? Chocolate? Peppermint?
Whichever flavor I picked, the result was always the same. I would get the mouthpiece in for about 30 seconds and I would promptly vomit. This became so commonplace that my mother took to bringing a change of clothes for me to each appointment.
I endured this for many years, until we switched to a dentist who didn’t really enjoy having her office covered in and smelling like kid puke. She took to swabbing my teeth with the flouride past instead. It still tasted awful, but it no longer tested my gag reflex.
Until the age of 18 I visited the dentist every 6 months. Then I went away to college and my teeth were my own.
One of the nice things about being an adult is that you don’t have to eat your vegetables and you don’t have to go to the dentist if you don’t want to. So, I didn’t go for many years after I left home. When I finally went, I discovered that my teeth were in sorry shape. Last year I spent several months just getting two teeth fixed. During this process I endured two root canals, some slicing of my gums, and the placement of two crowns. I was a bit disappointed to learn that unlike the Queen of England’s crown, mine came without any encrusted jewels.
After last year’s many procedures, I decided to take a few months off. I received several calls from my dentist’s office asking me to make an appointment. I wasn’t ready to go back, so I never returned their calls.
I went back earlier this week.
“Well, at least there’s nothing else new!” she told me.
While I was happy that I had no new rotting teeth, there were still three cavities left to fill. Having these cavities make me feel a bit dirty. Like I’m less of a person. When I walk out of the dentist office, I feel the need to cover my face in shame. Don’t look at me! I’m a man with poor dental hygiene! My dentist assures me that even though I brush my teeth daily, that some people are just prone to getting cavities.
Aaron on the other hand has never had a cavity. This is a fact that he never fails to mention after every trip he makes to the dentist.
“She says my teeth are in excellent condition! Not a cavity to be found!”
He says this with a smugness as if to suggest that he were Mother Teresa and his teeth had been cleaned by the hands of Jesus himself. Or at the very least Jesus' dental hygienist.
The one thing I have going for me, is that while my teeth are littered with cavities and silver fillings, they are perfectly straight. Aaron on the other hand was not so blessed in this area. Do you think Jesus had an orthodontist?
For the first few years of our relationship, Aaron wore braces. He got them rather late in life, so he was walking around with braces on his teeth for a large part of his early twenties. I found the braces endearing and incredibly cute when we first met. Now I just see them as ammo. When Aaron starts in about how his teeth are without a cavity, I manage to mention his years of braces and smile wide so he can see how perfectly straight my teeth are.
“Look, aren’t they beautiful! I think the silver really make them pop!”
In two weeks I have an appointment to fill the first of the three cavities left in my mouth. These days you get to choose how your cavities are filled. You can choose the traditional silver or a white resin filling. Not wanting to look like that guy with the metal mouth from James Bond, I have opted for the white resin. While the silver may indeed make them “pop”, I don’t want to start looking like a super-villain.
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