Thursday, the day before my hygienist appointment, I receive a text message from the dental surgery proclaiming that, due to unforeseen circumstances that had befallen Christine (names changed to protect the innocent), my appointment was now cancelled. Good grief...a relief...a stay of execution for my teeth. But, my relief was merely a thin veneer covering the inevitability of a reschedule. Sure enough, on Monday morning I receive a phone call from a number with an area code in the vicinity of the dental practice...
“Good morning”, came the opening salvo. I hesitated. I knew how this conversation would evolve and I had hoped to revel in my good fortune for a period longer than a single weekend. But there was no escape, I could tell immediately who I was dealing with from the receptionist’s upper middle class accent. She sounded so polished. This is, after all, a high class dental establishment with a high wage budget and consequently, a need to rinse every patient thoroughly. And that’s something that can leave a bad taste in ones mouth.
“We are terribly sorry to have had to cancel your appointment last week, however, I’m calling to book you in for a new one”
“Oh...are you?” came my reply. What a nerve I thought. “What happened to Christine?”...my second impromptu retort fired back on a sarcastic whim. I felt compelled to get to the root of the problem.
“She’s had a family emergency.” Came the response. Well, there was no way I was going to commit to anything then and there so I made my excuses, told her I would review my diary, consider my options and call her back in due course. Frankly, I was pretty pleased to have brushed her off.
Anyway, fast forward a week and I receive an email confirming my appointment for the following Monday. But...I hadn’t made that appointment? The receptionist must have...I mean, I couldn’t be sure but she seemed keen to fit me in so it made sense that she was the culprit...if the cap fits. So it was at this juncture that I realised not only was my life not my own anymore, but that my calendar was now being run by Gillian, an upper middle class sixty year old who knew the drill. It was a kick in the chops. I had become a powerless bystander in the circumstances of my own existence. And I won’t deny that this realisation bit me hard.
So Monday rolls around and I find myself adorning the foyer, perusing the glass cabinet housing a number of electric toothbrushes, a plastic model of a jaw with teeth attached, and a sign extolling the virtues of flossing. The place has a whiff of faded glory about it. Gillian’s on the blower, fobbing some poor punter off telling them this, telling them that; she’s the queen of this place, all she needs is a crown. I stare at her...she has this mark on her face, very similar to one I have, so I’m staring at it...not my mole, hers. She hangs up and I’m standing there, chewing the fat with her, telling her I hadn’t been party to today’s arrangement. I thought she might brace herself for a chastisement but she just shrugs it off.
Well, we get done jaw-wagging and I cast a solitary figure in the waiting room. Large green sofas hug three of the four walls like a mossy cushioned crescent and I’m sitting there, a solitary white man, like a single tooth on the untended gums of a faded aristocrat. Five minutes pass. It’s nine A.M. I’m first. My name is called and I start the slow walk to the medieval torture chamber down the corridor. If I had been staring at the fluoride have noticed the contra flow arrows, but as it was I was distracted by the adverts for dental products adorning the walls. Most of them cheapened by strap lines that shamelessly embrace dental-related wordplay.
Christine ushers me in. I settle into the dentist’s chair like an apprehensive athlete on the blocks. She’s asking me questions about oral hygiene but we both know that this is merely a precursor to the real content she has lined up. It’s the dental equivalent of ‘on your marks...get set’. And then Go! She says something that makes my jaw drop...
“Open wide.” My nemesis goes at me with a metal implement fashioned from high tensile steel, that looks like it was wrestled from a midget Captain Hook. I’m crestfallen.
And then she hits me with it. The one sided conversation. She’s asking questions...not the yes, no kind, ones that warrant a lengthy reply. Does she not realise she is currently operating a sadistic torturous invasion in my mouth? She’s literally chatting like a champ. She’s busy with my mouth, and she’s busy with hers.
She has worked here for well over a year, having moved across from another dental practice not ten miles from here. At the moment she’s waiting for a call from her insurance company because someone reversed into her car and scraped it all the way down the side. A bit like what she’s currently doing to my top left incisor. There’s no way they can deliver the hire car to the practice because there is nowhere to park, so her mother is on stand-by waiting for the hire car to be delivered to her home. When did my company move to the offices they’re in? I don’t respond. It’s difficult. I grunt. She hits me with another question. I grunt again. China Crisis are on the radio, she loved them when she was young. How many days a week am I going in to the office? I make a sound that sounds like two but without the ‘T’. One of her kids is at university, the other is unsure as to his life path. He’s probably stoned.
The grinding, scraping and poking continues. The questions are coming thick and fast. I’m beginning to wonder if she realises the predicament I’m in. Answers are literally on the tip of my tongue. Random snippets of her life are fired at me like a fact cannon from what seems to be an infinite source in her brain. There’s so much to impart. There is no visible clock...I wonder what time it is. And just like that she’s done. To be fair, my teeth look great. I could tell you more but to be honest, this story’s gotten to be a little long in the tooth.
