A Teeth Cleaning

Posted on September 16, 2002 in Dentition

April conducted me through a long fishhook of a hall to a room that occupied the place of the barb. She looked over my chart as I rolled my legs and torso into the chair. “No changes in health,” I announced. “Medications same as above.”

“You’re getting this down, aren’t you?” she giggled. She dropped a pile of clean explorers and a dental mirror on the tray and then took soundings on the pockets in my gumlines. The explorer dove into each corner and at a middle point on each tooth. April checked several points at a gasp and wrote numbers ranging from 1 to 5 on a chart of my mouth. She started on the outside of the top, worked her way to the other side, doubled back along the inside, and then repeated the drill for the lower jaw.

The other end of the explorer went into service as a pick. Following the same course as before, she scratched out stray skeins of pineapple and odd boulders of plaque from beneath the edges of my crowns. A dental drill that took a polisher head went over the surfaces of what the prosthodontist had called my “movie star teeth”. When she asked me how long I used my Sonicare toothbrush for, I confessed that I had been missing some brushings. We agreed as therapist and patient that I would have to conduct the humming sieges three times per day before we considered more drastic measures.

I quaffed half a cup of nasty-tasting blue Listerine. This forced indulgence nearly ruined the pleasure of having a clean mouth. I chased it with a cup of cloudy water from the tap. April led me back up front where the receptionist itemized the payments I still owed. I took an envelope to mail a check, promised to have my wife send it on the morrow, and scurried out to the parking lot. I felt guilty about exceeding my dental coverage this year. I had movie star teeth that secretly rotted in places that the brush couldn’t reach. Dental woes never ceased and I made no money to help cover the expense.

I swung into the truck, started the engine, aimed home, and fled from the thought. I burst past crossing shadows of palm trees as I savored the magestic gloom of Saint Saen’s Organ Symphony.