The path to dental salvation

"senri no michi mo ippo kara."

That's a japanese proverb which loosely translates as "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

This afternoon I took that big, single step to have that confidence, close-up confidence that is. The proverb came to my mind when I visited Mimi the dentist this afternoon. You see my friends and family have been constantly bugging me to visit the dentist and have my teeth fixed and cleaned. Well, overhauled is a more apt term I guess. Yes, I have a very bad set of gnashers! They’re so bad I haven’t had a date for centuries now. Sigh.

Smile you’re on candid camera! (Photo from the BBC)

The culprit for my dental misery: cigarette smoking and all those chemicals I got from drinking soda. Yes, nicotine and coke (the cola!) are weapons of mass destruction for our choppers!

According to Mimi, the carbonic acid from the soda weakens our teeth because it dissolves calcium. This makes it easier for bacteria to take up residence in our teeth. And they (the bacteria) will hole up in there until kingdom come unless you visit your dentist regularly. And I can’t even freakin remember the last time I paid a visit to a denstist.

But Grandmother! What big teeth you have," said Little Red Riding Hood. (Photo from Andrew Skolnick)

So there I was, cavities, tartar, halitosis and all, strapped to the dentist chair for 3 hours for my dental prophylaxis. Yes, it took that long because of all the dirt lodged in my teeth for the past hundred years. Man, it was like being sent down to hell to pay Lucifer a visit!

All I remember was that scritching sound when the dentist tried to rasp off all the tartars from my teeth. Scritch, scritch! Squeak, squeak! It’s like someone is drilling holes in my gums. I tried to escape from the clutches of the MAD dentist but she shoved me back to the chair and slapped me three times to make me unconscious. When I came back to life, the witch was not finished yet! And I could see that she was enjoying it! She was smiling the whole time. The bitch must be a dentist from Auschwitz!

She then barked at me to rinse off all that gross and foul things from my mouth. gargle gargle gargle. rinse rinse rinse. I almost spit all those junk to her face. That biatch! Hehehe.

Finally, after three torturous hours she led me away from the death chamber and handed me the bill. She then looked at me and gave her sweetest smile and told me to be back after a week so she can work on my lower teeth and have them fixed. Jesus Christ! I don’t think I’ll be back in that hellhole. But then this could be my only chance to pick up a date. Oh well.