Look after your mouth like you look after your pond.
I have a fine dentist; she and the hygienist do a great job of looking after the few teeth I have left. There are unknowns I have recently delved into, like the scoring system for the state of the gums. I ask about the meaning of the numbers she calls out like a quiet bingo caller as she probes my mouth. I know now that a 4 is bad, 3 less so and if you get into the heady realms of 2 and 1, you’re on a winner. X was a puzzle, though, and on enquiry I find that there are no gnashers in that area to score. So X simply marks the spot.
My hygienist, and I have history with hygienists, is always cheerful and optimistic. Previous iterations years ago, when I visited other dentists, included the one who tutted all the time when poking around, and I’m sure muttered more to herself words like “ this will never do”, and then she smiled sweetly at me and, with gouge in hand, told me the torture was over. She had a way of faffing with my molars so much I thought she’d been using Vim on them and they ached for days.
Then there was the one who looked like she might be more at home baking Victoria sponges. Was she wearing pearls? She approached the job with the same vigour as the previous incumbent, with a gleam in her eye, easily visible from such close proximity, and a continuous nervous whistling through the teeth of any nondescript tune that came into her head. It was like being treated with lift music.
My present dentists also have music, gently playing in the background, and a telly on the wall. So you might get a glimpse of East Enders whilst you’re rinsing out. Not that there’s a gap in the conversation. I suspect dentists and hygienists don’t like silence, so whilst you are lying looking at the ceiling, they keep up a stream of words. Spoken gently like: ‘Nearly there’, and ‘ Almost done ’, and offering advice that needs no answer, because you have what feels like a sucking umbrella handle in your mouth, little mirrors and if you’re unlucky, a drill. In addition, if there has been some deeper digging required, then the jab in your jaw to numb the area makes any answer after the treatment sound like you’ve had several large whiskies.
What’s more, after all these treats, you try not to go open-mouthed again as they prise open your wallet.
On my recent trip, the cheerful, optimistic hygienist ( and they have always been women ) gave me the usual cheery lecture on keeping things clean by comparing my mouth to a pond that needed to be disturbed to prevent the build-up of algae.
“I have a pond” I said
“Well, you’ll know what I’m talking about then“
“ Indeed I do”
Looks like a hygienist is needed here.
