I recently had an appointment with our local dental hygienist for a deep root (?) cleaning. I know, constant reader, the only thing worse than a dental appointment would be to read about one, but try to hang in there today, okay?
Anyway, it appears mysuestories was not in for the average cleaning (although I do pride myself on keeping up with my dental care!) The first indication that this was no ordinary cleaning was the appearance of a very long syringe filled with lidocaine or silocaine or some kind of caine other than the kind you might have paid exorberant amount of money for enjoyment in the seventies. ( You tend to stop listening and focus only on the hand wielding a humongous needle coming towards you!)
Six (yup, six!!) excruciating shots later, the right side of my face was as slack as a dead beat dad. At the dentist instruction, I rinsed out whatever caine like substance still wallowed in my mouth. Only, my rinsing into that little porcelain urinal looking thing at the left of my chair at chin height, well, it was more like a spit and drool out of the mouth that couldn't make a proper spitting pucker. Once I was done drooling and slapping at a cheek I could not feel with a Kleenex to catch spittle I could not possibly find without sensations, my dear dentist proclaimed me ready for the hygienist.
Then the fun began. Janet, my hygienist whom I suspect has direct ties to the family lineage of Jeffrey Dahmer, proceeded to attack my oral orifice with any number of pointed and hook ended instruments. (At this point, I'm simply ecstatic that she didn't go for ob-gyn!)
After a few minutes of her chatter to my grunts and groans , she suggested I rinse my mouth. When I asked her how to do so, (since the spittoon cup was now empty) her reply was to simply lift the cup and drink and spit.
Now, I have at this stage in my life thus far, managed a career, a husband or three, and raised two children who have as of this writing not murdered anyone or similarly disgraced me. I looked at dear Janet, who looked right at home with the remnants of my long lost tartar and my blood adorning her smock, and said,
"I know how to sip and spit, Hannibal. It is the filling of the cup that is as yet elusive to me."
She laughed her maniacal laugh, and filled the cup, and then proceeded to share with me the jollies she gets upon uprooting the chaos of hidden tartar. I can only liken it to the Yosemite Sam cartoons of my youth, in which he swings his trusty pick axe exclaiming "Thar's gold in them thar hills!" I am ever so grateful I am no longer a smoker with all that entails upon one's maw to unleash upon her!
That my mouth was in a state of suspended animation akin to cryogenics aside, the glee with which Janet Dahmer voraciously attacked the cooties that lie beneath my teeth was down right alarming. She snickered, and sneered, and more than once erupted in a euphoria worthy of Boris Karloff at his best.
Thirty pain free (her) and chock full of laughter (again, her) minutes later, she proclaimed the right half of my mouth cooties free.
Oh, then she had me make an appointment for the left side, more for her enjoyment I am sure, rather than my dental care. Whoo hoo. Can't wait for that one!
Not to worry, dear reader. I made her give me all tissue and towel remnants of MY mouth ridden tartar to be disposed of. No way was I having a raid on her house twenty years from now yield hundreds of little tartar statues with MY DNA attached!
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