If you are ever visiting again and need a dentist I now have a good one to recommend. Well, with reservations. I felt terribly empty-handed not to be able to call so-and-so when you were here and in such awful pain, but thankfully I�ve got a full fleet of health care professionals now. No missing teeth, so to speak.
I can also pass on the name of a good video that actually the dentist told me about. The video is the original of The Haunting but perhaps while I was contending with the noise of the plaque being scraped from my teeth I misheard him. I thought he said it was the scariest movie ever made and out of curiosity I rented it. I�m not sure how we started talking about scary movies but I�ll take any suggestion just to avoid walking around those video stores like an idiot unable to think or pick anything out. It�s a very good movie, what I saw, but perhaps he meant it was the scariest movie he ever saw, or perhaps he saw during the 1960s.
I don�t think I hear as well when my mouth is open for long periods of time. Since my wisdom tooth extraction beneath the hands of that trecherous oral surgeon, actual name of Dr. Romeo, my jaw has never been the same. That popping noise when I yawn, you�ve heard it. This new dentist jumped right on the TMJ bandwagon, to my disappointment, no matter my story of the oral surgeon going ahead with the extraction even though I had a slight fever. �Women carry a lot of supressed anger in their jaws,� the dentist said and I wondered what book he read and when, or worse some cross-conference involving psychotherapists and dentists.
He spoke highly of several of his patient�s teeth, including my friend who referred him to me. He made her having to have a bridge redone sound like a sign of good fortune. Still, he shared in my obvious delight that I had no cavities, only some sensitive areas where the enamel had worn away and the root was revealed. I wondered briefly if this was a ploy. Perhaps he told all his new patients this to make coming back seem like an opportunity for another victory. It actually happened to me when I was a child. Our family dentist for years told us we all had excellent teeth. Going to see him was like going to see Santa Claus with a spit bowl. He gave excellent rings and small toys and once he actually gave us gum. Sugar free, yes, but still. When he died and we went to the man who took over his practice, my sisters and I had a total of 15 cavities.
Despite my anxiety, I did appreciate his fitting me in so quickly and his attempts to distract me from the scraping by making conversation and, most of all, having the public radio station on. Unfortunately, it was only loud enough to hear when his hands and instruments were not in my mouth.
He showed me my salivary glands. The ones under the tongue and in the cheek. I�ve never enjoyed looking under my tongue and it was certainly challenging to do so with someone else looking at it at the same time. I was tempted to ask about every little bump under there but I kept myself contained to an obvious few (harmless).
My friend had warned me somewhat about what might happen. She met the dentist at an improv theater group. �He�s an excellent dentist,� she said, �but not a very good actor. A big hambone.� Also kind of weird teenage boy humor, she said. At one of her big appointments, root canal surgery, about a week away from Halloween, he was dressed in a red-paint splattered surgical mask, top and gloves. She laughed it off but was a little shaken up. Another woman came in when my friend was in the waiting room and she was furious. She had guts enough to reschedule, according to my friend. The woman used the word �tomfoolery.� When was the last time you heard that?
Anyway, the dentist said he did it to break up the tension people have about going to the dentist. Again, this is a bit worrisome to me as it faintly smells of the whole therapy connection.
Since I could barely hear his conversation clearly, never mind the radio, I relied on him to summarize the latest news. He was imitating one of the reporters in a subtle enough way when he suddenly took on the character of a Palestinian woman whose husband was killed in the latest Mideast attack. I�m not joking. I barely sat up in time to rinse and watch him turn one of those drool bibs into a scarf.
It was entertaining and embarassing at the same time. You know that nearly irrestible combination. I wanted him to stop and not to stop. Maybe tone it down a bit. As if someone was watching me get a kick out of a grown man, a dentist no less, stooping down and gesturing madly with his hands. Rolling his eyes, pretending to cry. He�s not that much older than we are, I think that�s what got me.
I tried for a diversion by asking him about the history of dentistry. I know, but I was curious about what they used for anaesthesia before anaesthesia. Drink, he said, and sometimes, drugs like opium. �Doesn�t sound half bad, does it?� he said. �How about a whiskey sour?� His timing was a little off but I laughed. Then, I felt a little angry that I had gotten myself into a situation where I felt I had to be sociable. I just wanted to come to the dentist.
Still, he gave me an excellent cleaning and did a temporary fix for my crown. His prices are very reasonable and he�s close by. I just want it to work out. I don�t want to be dentistless. I don�t want to get that feeling of panic when I�m running my tongue over my teeth. He�s likable, after a bit and he�s good. He�s very good. I know my friend has spent thousands of dollars and she wouldn�t just go to anyone. He doesn�t give her a discount even though she has seen him in quite naked emotional states, and he tried to kiss her once in an improv about a funeral. It didn�t even come close to working, she said, but she played along. It was an improv, she had to.
Well, anyway, I watched the video, mostly. I do think some of the camera work was quite effective for the time. I didn�t enjoy the black and white filming. Though I love black and white film, as you know, it was just too dark for my tastes, and also for my state of mind, because I first fell asleep about 30 minutes in. As I�ve told you, it�s not a reflection on the film or the company or a combination of the two, but actually quite a compliment. I�m sure I�ve mentioned my complicated sleeping patterns and really, anything that gets me to sleep, even for brief periods, is quite successful.
It�s not entirely true, as my ex-husband says, that I fall asleep at every film. He found it quite humorous to video me at the start of a film, eager and full of energy, then sagging to sleep, sometimes with snoring. He did this at our home and at a movie theater once and edited the footage into a three minute montage that is really quite exhausting to watch due to all the quick cuts and the background music. I got a few good laughs over it due to my excellent sense of humor, but let�s face it, it wasn�t exactly the work of a person in love with me. My mouth drool is really not something I�m anxious to have 50 people at a party see, only a lucky few (ha ha).
I woke up at the part where the main character, Eleanor, is having another one of her revealing conversations with herself, this time about caring for her mother. I rewound the tape so I could go back and see what I missed, trussing myself into a more upright position with a big afghan and a cup of mint tea, but no luck. Soon enough I was drifting off again and quite frankly, the stomping noise of that spirit or ghost or whatever it was only annoyed me. It did not make me want to wake myself up again and keep watching. I just wanted to get away from it.
It was at this point that my fiance came in with his dog. This is the dog I told you about, the one whose teeth he brushes with the poultry flavored toothpaste for dogs. The dog lives with his former wife most of the time but she had gone to a yoga vacation in Mexico and now we had the pleasure of slipping a plastic condom-like cap over a finger, smearing it with the chickeny smelling toothpaste and wrestling the dog�s mouth open. It was a new toothpaste package and made me think this was not something the former wife usually did with the dog, just something she thought up to make the visit more difficult.
Besides this, the dog is the anxious, shivery type. She is a lovely black labrador retriever but the first one I met who shakes when you put her leash on to take her for a walk. Every dog I�ve ever known or had can�t wait to be outside. We still spell out w-a-l-k because if we say �walk� out loud instead of flipping herself around in joy, she goes under a table and shakes like you�ve just beat her. When you walk outside with her, she dodges and slinks down at the slightest noise. On our busy street it�s like walking a 75 pound snake.
Included in her little suitcase for the week was a series of short leashes connected together by a couple of rings and a fastener that looks like a muzzle. My fiancee told me it was a head lead, but when he puts it on her this sweet-faced dog takes on a criminal look. One of the first walks we took with her, after we got past the snake stage, a neighbor who lives two houses down stopped her walk and stood completely still as we approached. I said hello, something she normally would have responded to with a smile and a little chat, but she spoke through her clenched teeth, barely moving her mouth like a ventriloquist in training without a dummy. �Does she bite?� she asked.
No matter how I reassured her it looked like I was not telling the truth. I don�t think I would have believed me. Plus the dog lurched in her direction more than once and so quickly that my fiancee�s shoulder was strained afterward.
How do we get into these situations? I wish I knew (maybe I don�t). I�ve suggested and believe won the small battle to get my fiance to take the dog to an obedience school but I�m afraid it won�t do much good. This will be the third time. Perhaps the third time is the charmer.
As for the movie, well, take it for what it�s worth. If you�re still renting a lot it might be worth throwing it in. I only hope you�ve recuperated from your dental work. Still, if you need it, the dentist here is Dr. Badalementi. I know, what a mouthful!
Cheers!
--Nancy