So Monday morning I went to the Mysterious Dentist’s Appointment I Never Made, where the Marquis de Sade of dental hygienists cleaned my teeth with disturbing enthusiasm. At least I THINK she was cleaning them… but perhaps she was attempting to pry them out of my head. All I know is that once I got home, my entire mouth hurt for several hours, to the point that I finally took some Tylenol to calm my aching nerves. I’ve always wondered how dental hygienists perfect that “sawing the gums” technique they use when flossing teeth – do they have to practice that on dummy teeth before graduating to real people? Is there a class entitled “Lumberjack Flossing 101”? Are they not considered “real” hygienists until they’ve made someone’s gums bleed? Honestly, I’d be much more happy if they just gave ME the stupid floss and let me handle it myself… really, I wouldn’t mind at all…
Anyway, this particular hygienist also decided to scare me into obsessive tooth-anxiety by pointing out the fact that I grind my teeth at night, which, in turn, is causing small fractures to form in my bottom molars. With the fancy new cameras they have in the dentist’s office, she was able to blow up a picture of my tooth until it was the size of my head, so I could see in great detail what she was talking about. She then proceeded to tell me that my teeth could be perfectly fine for another fifteen years, or they could all basically break apart and fall out of my mouth within the next year or so. And to REALLY hammer home the message, she showed me pictures of other people’s teeth (again, blown up to the size of my head) that had already broken apart and (literally, in one case) fallen out of their mouths. I can never… eat… anything… again…
Seriously, I’ve always had a strange obsession with my teeth. The ONLY recurring dream I ever have is about my teeth falling out. It’s not the exact same dream every time, but about once a month I’ll have a dream where my teeth start falling out. Usually it starts with me realizing that one or more of my teeth are loose, and the more I TRY not to bite down on them, the more I DO bite down on them, until the loose tooth (or teeth) falls out. I then wake up and take a quick tooth inventory, to make sure it really WAS just a dream and all of my teeth are safe and sound. So really – showing me pictures of my horrible tooth nightmare come to life is NOT going to be good for my psyche. In fact, it’s kinda stressing me out… and I think when I get stressed out, I grind my teeth even more… but if I grind my teeth more, they’re going to break apart… and the thought of my teeth breaking apart stresses me out… which makes me grind my teeth more… ARGH!!
So why all this tooth paranoia? I don’t even know the answer to that question. I do know that all of my teeth were early bloomers – I even had all my wisdom teeth by the time I was sixteen. And then one day, I noticed a NEW tooth attempting to break its way through my gums behind my upper right wisdom tooth. Huh??? I thought wisdom teeth were it – wisdom teeth are the be all and end all of teeth. Once you’ve got them, you’re done. There ARE no more. There aren’t REGULAR wisdom teeth, followed by extra-enlightened-King-Solomon wisdom teeth. So, thinking I had some sort of mutant teeth that would eventually push my wisdom teeth aside, I went to the dentist and had some x-rays taken. It turned out that I DID have mutant teeth… two of them, to be specific. One on the right, and one on the left. The dentist removed the one that was pushing through my gums, and then handed it to me in one of those little plastic treasure chests they give to kids for the tooth fairy. The extra tooth wasn’t the size of a wisdom tooth – it was more like an incisor… a stray incisor that somehow migrated to the back of my mouth. Fifteen or sixteen years later, when I finally had my wisdom teeth removed, the oral surgeon remarked on the funny little tooth behind my upper left wisdom tooth. He took it out along with my wisdom teeth (but never gave me the little plastic treasure chest… in fact, I didn’t get ANY of my wisdom teeth. Maybe I WANTED those things. They WERE mine, after all... and c’mon – how much do you think wisdom teeth would fetch on the tooth fairy black market??).
Anyway, I’m getting an overwhelming urge to brush and floss, so I’d better go do that… before my teeth fall out…
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