A Toothy Tale.
by Paul Carter
Like most people, I brush my teeth more or less twice a day. Then, just to be on the safe side, every once in a while, I go in for an industrial clean as well. I don’t mind going because I really like my dental hygienist. She is unfailingly friendly and chatty and always murmurs sympathy and concern whenever she sees me digging my fingernails silently into the palms of my hands. Not that it has ever stopped her from doing whatever she was doing at the time, but it’s nice to know that she cares.
As she whirrs away, she brings me up to date on all her news. Never demanding any input from me, she tells me what her children are up to, how the new puppy is working out, and what her husband did last weekend. On the odd occasion when she has run out of items she feels she needs to bring me up to date about, she hums melodies from Les Mis to herself in a pleasant and tuneful voice, leaving me to quietly focus on not just the search-light cluster a foot from my face, but also, and against all natural instincts, on keeping my mouth stretched open so that she can find more tender bits of me to poke.
Her boss, my dentist, and a terrific bloke, takes a very different approach. He stuffs what feels like Pontiac potatoes inside my cheeks, fills my mouth up with instruments, stretches my lips with the outside of his left little finger and then asks how the recent trip to Africa went.
And although I have now attended my hygienist on many occasions over the years, and I can tell you which clarinet grade her older daughter is up to, and that the puppy is now peeing outside, I realised, on my last visit, that I wouldn’t have the slightest chance of recognising her if I bumped into her in the street. All I can say is that she has nice upside-down eyes. For, as she beavers away on my choppers, she has only ever been wearing a face mask. And I have never seen her without one. And that goes back way before they were even fashionable.
To read my wonderful stories from my time as a local GP please head here.
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