Open Wide
Jennifer Flaten

Tipped back in a chair that resembles something from the Starship Enterprise, I attempt to answer the hygienist’s questions. Of course, that is next to impossible because her entire forearm is in my mouth. She is wielding a device that resembles a medieval torture device and she is using it to gouge my gums, or so it feels.

Since my mother raised me to be polite, I attempt to answer her to the best of my ability. She smiles and nods. I can’t believe she understands my answer, when even I think I sound like a walrus stuck on an ice floe.

I’ve always wondered if dental hygienists are required to take a special “Understanding someone with a drill in their mouth” class. As you have probably guessed, I am at my long, long, long overdue dental appointment. Just that we’re clear, I haven’t avoided the dentist because I don’t like the dentist I like the dentist fine: it’s the dental procedures I don’t like.

It’s been awhile since my last cleaning and I am at a new clinic so the hygienist orders a complete set of X-rays. After securing me into the machine, hey, watch the head clamp this is an x-ray not electroshock therapy, the tech drapes a lead vest over me before scurrying into her concrete bunker. After reminding me not to move, how can I, I’m strapped in like Hannibal Lecter, the tech starts the machine. 

I watch in amazement as a full size picture of my skull materializes on the screen. Huh, look at all those fillings! I bet I put my childhood dentist’s kids through college with all that silver.

After the x-ray, the tech assures me I don’t have to worry about glowing in the dark, that’s why I wore a protective vest. Then she tethers me to a chair and leaves me to wait for the hygienist. I am considering making a break for it when the hygienist arrives.

After adjusting my fancy chair, she flips on a monitor mounted above the chair. Oh, how cool is that, a television on the ceiling. I look for the remote, but the hygienist informs me we will be watching something special, the inside of my mouth. As I open my mouth to decline this dental tour, she sticks a pen-sized camera in mouth and begins narrating the various tour stops.

Here’s the erupted wisdom tooth, here’s the mercury filling. I’m just kidding, in a mild way. I squint. This is worse a “Saw” movie. I have absolutely no desire to see my tongue on the big screen.

After Cecil B. DeMille finishes with filming “Gums: One Woman’s Fight Against Gingivitis,” she gets to work cleaning my teeth. There is much cursing and crying. The hygienist is having a hard time, as she attempts to restore my pearly whites, but I’m calm.

Finishing the front teeth, she heads for my molars. Suddenly have a whole lot more sympathy for fish on the hook. She is stretching my jaw so much I expect to leave the clinic looking like the joker from Batman.

Finally, after much tsk-tsking and a lot of rinsing and spitting, I free to go. I take my complimentary toothbrush and floss. I beat a hasty retreat.