I know what you’re thinking, no one goes to the dentist anymore. We all just buy the latest teeth whitening trend from TJ Maxx or Instagram and brush our teeth with charcoal. Oh, that was just me?
I might’ve missed a year, or two, or three of dentist visits. As you sit there judging me, I would like to give you more evidence that should confirm you are right to judge.
I’ve been going to the same dentist since I was a kid. All the hygienists have known me by name since before I could talk, they all make a big stink when I walk through the door and they ask me personal questions with intense stares like they really give a shit. They are wonderful people and I missed them during my hiatus. Even the actual dentist, the guy who shows up in the last 30 seconds of your dental visit to declare your teeth good enough or bad enough for another appointment next week, even he is the nicest person and remembers me and all my siblings names and ages.
For a kid with four older siblings and two younger ones, this attention made me feel like I was somewhat important.
You should be asking yourself by now, why did this bitch ghost her dentist friends so hard? What could her motive be? Guys, the answer is so simple, like you’re going to be so mad at yourselves for not guessing it.
But wait, there’s more. So I had braces. *shudders* And I obviously hated my existence during those two years. I had to go through the should-be-illegal process of having a palette expander installed on the roof of my mouth that pushed my two front teeth apart, creating the oh-so-elusive gapped tooth look. This helped with my pumped-up ego from the dental hygienists.
Along with the hockey grin I got a new dental experience from the orthodontist’s office. I don’t know what you call the orthodontist hygienists (they do all the work and the doctor comes in at the last second to save the day and win the cash prize. It’s all very analogous because all the hygienists are women in my experience and all the dentists/orthodontists are men, the fuck) but they were so, so rude. Okay, first they make you make an appointment that has the worst hours. You’re always coming right after school so that you don’t actually get to leave school early but you do get to sit in school bus traffic to get there. Then when I arrived I would check in and sit down. And hear from no one for an hour. Like, every time. And you have to go to the orthodontist way more often than the dentist. Hours, just gone, from your busy, busy sixteen-year-old life. Traumatizing.
By the time you get in the scary orthodontist chair, you’re mentally exhausted from craving any acknowledgment. My orthodontist was like a bad boyfriend. He would say hello when you got there, make you feel a small amount of special, and then disappear for a while without saying when he would be back. You wouldn’t want to seem annoying so you wouldn’t follow him around to see what he was doing and you didn’t want to seem insecure so you didn’t go to the front desk to ask if you got the time wrong. Suffice it to say, you were not feeling like your best self when you got into the torture chair.
If the orthodontist was a bad boyfriend, then his assistant or hygienists were like the ex that still hung around after their break up and who his parents liked better. You knew there was no avoiding them and they were bitches. They never spoke to me, only to each other at neighboring torture chairs, and they gave no shits if I was writhing in pain. Braces sucked and I’m not sure if I ever recovered from the pain they caused.
This is important. Because as you judgy hoes now know, those braces gave me a lot of cavities. Which sent me where? Back into the loving arms of my regular old friendly neighborhood dental hygienists. Like a teenager hugging her mother after screaming “I hate you”, I returned.
Was I told to brush my teeth with the special water toothbrush so that food wouldn’t get stuck in them for years on end? Yes, why do you ask?
Anyway, after braces, many, many fillings and a couple pep talks later, I had a beautiful smile. I took that as evidence that I didn’t need professional help anymore. I was done. I’d already used up my allotted 35,000 hours of dental hygiene in the first 18 years of my life hadn’t I? I brushed my teeth twice a day and never looked back.
Flash forward however many years later. I’m about to turn 26. I went to the dentist a few times after the braces but then never made any follow up appointments. Kind of like when you get a wax and you miss the follow up appointment and then it’s more painful than ever before.
Anyway, last week I saw a hole in my tooth. A HOLE. IN MY TOOTH. One of the front and center ones. I’m about to turn 26. Meaning I have a hole in my tooth and my health insurance is about to run out!
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I deserve the stress. After all, the good people at my dentist’s office would have loved to have seen me every six months as promised. My orthodontist would love to fix me with new braces should I need to align my new tooth after I let my old one rot away. Are my teeth just falling out? Are they giving up?
So I call my dentist and they ask me if I’m a new client. My trusty old friends said, “New phone, who dis” and I had to reply without sarcasm or wit. I get put on a waiting list 19 days before my 26th birthday. 15 days before birthday I get a call that they can see me the following evening. I dread it. I say thank you so much. I get to their office the next day and even though I’m wearing a mask, my dentist says hello, how are you, it’s been so long, it’s good to see you. Maybe I tear up and maybe I don’t but I am at ease and I’m not so nervous anymore. Trust is not so easily broken, if built up over a long period of time. (You mediate on trust as you sit in your dentist’s waiting room, too? Crazy.)
And then the receptionist goes, “Did you cheat on us since your last visit?” And it hits me. I’m the bad boyfriend in this office. Fuck. I laugh and say no, I just decided to sacrifice my teeth for more netflix time.
I get in the chair. I get 18 x-rays taken of the inside of my mouth. I’m sweating, fearing the rot and decay yet to be seen in its nakedness. My dentist friends are laughing, telling jokes, asking me questions and taking their tools out of my mouth because they care about my answers. Goddamn, they’re so wonderful. I vow to never let them down again. I vow to floss consistently for the first time ever. I vow to never shame them with HOLES in my TEETH ever again.
The x-rays come back. One cavity. Only one. The hole in my tooth is from a filling they did years ago that fell out and needed to be replaced. Easy fix, everything will be wrapped up in one more visit. And they think I look beautiful and so grown up and how are my parents?
My relief is immediate and I finally register that my favorite dental hygenist is going gray but her conversational speed hasn’t slowed in the least and she’s wearing a face shield so I can see her face. I see that my dentist is losing his hair and I wonder why he is here at 7 p.m. on a Thursday and if he gets to choose his hours. I finally think about someone other than myself. I look forward to my appointment the following week so I can see them in a sane state of mind and ask them questions about their lives.
So, to answer the question asked 30 run-on sentences ago, I ghosted my dentists friends because like every bad boy I was afraid of love. I needed to love myself enough to accept the love they offered freely and without conditions. (Okay, they did bill me though.)
You should go to the dentist because it will make you human again, you selfish hoes. Go and hug your dentists, you silly peoples, but only if you’re me and only if there isn’t a pandemic.
P.S. Has anyone seen my retainer? Lost it about 8 years ago. Ok, no problem, byyyyye
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