IT'S probably not a good idea to write about somebody who can inflict pain on you at will, but no one's ever accused me of being bright. There’s a molar
to this storyI'd gone to the same dentist for years because I think it's a rule. You don't just willy-nilly change dentists, even if he uses an iron spike and wooden mallet instead of a drill. Being locked into one dentist for years means you are sort of counting on him to keep up with dental technology. So, while he's hammering away at a molar with the spike and mallet, you assume that this is the latest breakthrough in the mouth restoration industry.
My guy actually was a step above the spike-and-mallet era. He had a drill that looked like one of those things you get in a kid's woodworking kit. He hadn't heard of AIDS or, at least if he had, he wasn't spooked by it, because he didn't wear any of the protection gear health professionals don these days. He just jumped right in there with his bare hands, flailing around with his battery-powered drill and pocket mirror until he had managed to carve out an opening the size of the Grand Canyon in one of your teeth. On the bright side, he apparently bought Novocaine in 50-gallon drums from Drugs 'R Us and wasn't stingy about using it. He didn't like to drill until your arm was numb but preferred your hip to be tingly.
I assumed his technique was right out of the Modern Dentistry Handbook although, when I was on the police beat, I saw more finesse at autopsies. For the record, I'm morally against dentists straddling patients in the chair but I understand they need leverage in some circumstances.
And my dentist knew his limitations. When he determined I needed a few wisdom teeth pulled, he realized he wasn't up to the task, even if he used his patented boot-on-the-forehead extraction method. He sent me to a tooth-yanking professional who turned out to be one of the smallest Japanese men I have ever seen. My initial thought was that, unless this guy knows karate, this is going to be a long afternoon. He did and it wasn't. And he was a proponent of the pre-operative intravenous use of Valium, so I was lucky there.
My dentist left town recently. I realized it when I didn't get my annual generic birthday card. I felt vaguely empty, like a battered spouse whose mate has just been hauled away by the cops. Sure, he was a bit rough after he'd been drinking, but he was MY dentist.
The point of all this is that I was forced to find a new dentist and, not to be overly dramatic, it was like being beamed from the deck of that rickety sailing ship in "Amistad" to the bridge of the starship "Enterprise."
Honest to God, I thought it was standard practice for dentists to go on long monologues about serial killers while working on you.
I feel a little bit like a boy raised by wolves when I go to my new dentist. Can it be true? I mean, the vast array of clean implements -- from space-age spit-suckers to hypodermic gizmos that don't look like they came from a needle exchange program -- was staggering.
My new dentist wears rubber gloves, a surgical mask and a plastic visor. And that's just in the waiting room.
I can actually keep my eyes open during dental procedures now, knowing that instead of seeing the manic face of a man babbling about Theodore Bundy I will see the kind countenance of a true professional. It is a calming experience, something, I suspect, like a UFO abductee being probed by a superior alien life form.
My new dentist does have the power to cause me pain but so far he hasn't used it. I feel like a peasant who has moved from a warring fiefdom into the land of a benevolent monarch. Except with insurance coverage.