Why I Was on My Back and Drooling at 9:45 a.m.
Posted by Moose on July 14th, 2006. Filed under: Meat Suit.Things you want to hear from your dental hygienist: “My, what shiny smooth teeth you have. What perfect pink gums you have. May I take a picture of your sparkling grin for my scrapbook?”
Things you don’t want to hear from your dental hygienist: “Wow. Ew. Do you even know what’s back there? No, really. Yikes.”
Guess which version I heard this morning before the 45 minutes of scraping began?
Why does plaque just sit there looking innocuous? It’s even the same color as your teeth. This is a good survival technique for that crafty plaque, because you can’t see it. You just go about your business, thinking all is right in your dental world, while your plaque gains squatter’s rights on your gums. Why can’t plaque look like the green horny monster my dental hygienist claims it to be? That way my teeth might have a fighting chance. Even I would notice hairy caterpillars clinging to my molars.
Interesting fact about good dental hygienists: They can tell what you do just by looking in your mouth. I have never had my teeth cleaned by this hygienist. I have never met this hygienist. Yet she took one look in my wide open craw and asked, “Are you a dancer?”
Is it tattooed on my tongue? Is there a little sign hanging from the roof of my mouth? How the hell did she know that? Apparently, dancers often breathe through their mouths. (It’s true. I often resemble Brendan Fraser circa Encino Man.) The neanderthals of the civilized world, dancers’ plaque hardens into chrystallized cement because of all the extra oxygen. My plaque built a concrete highrise and started leasing condos.
I was threatened with surgery, bone-loss and a Richard Simmons comeback before I exited that chair, clutching new toothbrush, stimudents, floss and a healthy fear of the vile Plaque Monster.
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