After moving, I dialed for my first dental appointment in our new location. The receptionist answered, “Dr. Gans’ office.”
“Hello, this is Era Parham*; I need a routine check-up, and I floss daily.”
“Is Monday at 11:00 okay?”
“It’s fine – but remember, I floss daily.
I knew it wasn’t enough. This dentist would do it too, just like the last four dentists I was able to remember. Dr. Jones, one of those in my recent past, would recline my chair to face the ceiling. There were no tiles to count, but glossy photos of toothless hoboes. Captioned were tidbits such as, “You don’t have to floss all your teeth – just the ones you want to keep!” The smiling men looked impoverished and unable to afford toothpaste or maybe even clean water to rinse with let lone dental care and floss!
I always planned to point this out to Dr. Jones, but in he’d come smiling and stick novocaine in several places (none of which seemed to be close to the tooth in question), and initiate a conversation with his nurse.
So I was demoted to a dribbling non-entity in a bib. But it was no better with Dr. Walker. He was very cheap and had no nurse. As soon as I opened my mouth (“wide”), up would go the volume on the radio and he’d break out in song, explaining during commercials he’d always wanted to be a singer. It was easy to see why no hygienist would stay.
Remembering these details made me dread Monday – but nevertheless, it came. At precisely 11:00, I filled in the New patient Form and wrote in the margin across the page, “I floss daily!” I signed the waiting sheet: Era Parham* – I floss daily.”
The hygienist led me to the cleaning room and I began my carefully practiced monolog. “I am a very disciplined person. I brush my teeth twice a day and I floss EVERY morning and EVERY night. I do it right: I scrape along both sides of the tooth…ALL my teeth. I use a floss threader under the bridge. The I rinse thoroughly. I did this when I WAS IN LABOR! Do you understand? I have not skipped flossing for years.” The hygienist was nonplussed.
She cleaned my teeth and gave me a new toothbrush. “I’ll send Dr. Gans to check you,” she warned. Then she left. He walked in briskly, smiling and said, in the exact words all my dentists used. “Let’s open up and take a look.”
Open I did. In went the praying, scraping intrusions, and predictably out came the prodding I had not intended ever to hear again: “Brushing often is good, but it is very important you realize what a dramatic difference simple flossing can make.”
I intended to bite through the steel instruments and amputate his fingers. But he went on. “It really takes so little time. I’m going to demonstrate now—just up and scrape down on BOTH sides.” He smiled his official dental smile of assurance. “If I give you some floss to take home, do you think you could just try it?”
I could feel my face flushing red and then purple but my mouth was still immobilized. Rather than shake my head in agreement, I just stared.
“Oh, I see. You need me to repeat the procedure…” The man seemed to enjoy himself even more the second time.
“Dr. Gans, Mrs. Hedgecoth is ready.”
“Nurse, would you go over flossing with Mrs. Parham*” and he was gone.
I must live with the fact that, no matter what I do, should I floss every hour of the day, I will have to hear The Speech twice yearly. I’m convinced every year at the dental conventions there is a contest: “Hey, Bryan, I delivered The Speech over 4,000 times last year.”
“Shabby! Old Leroy will get the Floss Trophy again this year – 6459 times.”
“Wow! I’ll just repeat myself a few times during drilling I guess. I had a lady last week who couldn’t believe what she was hearing – a Mrs. Parham*. It made such an impression on her; you should have seen her eyes. I made a note to say it all very slowly next time for her, if you know what I mean.”
But I plan to try a new ploy out next September. I’m going to stick tiny pieces of floss between each tooth and let some hang out of either side of my mouth down past my waist. Maybe I won’t have to be reminded about the product again.
Or at least I’ll clear out his waiting room!
*My name at the time of this story was JP Rowe – which was my married name.