The Philosophy of My Mouth

Laying in the "chair" at your local dentist's office doesn't bring up exciting memories for most people. At best you'll remember the beautiful Dental Assistant that brushed her breasts up against you as she scraped away on your teeth. I imagine if you are one of those people who has been blessed with good teeth you may even enjoy going to the dentist for a cleaning or some trite conversation about dental hygenics. I, on the other hand, am not blessed with good teeth. When I say good teeth I really mean strong teeth.

I had the untimely misfortune to be born in the American southwest at a time when there was an overabundant amount of floride in the water. The long lasting effects of this imbalance left my adult teeth (buckteeth to make matters worse) stained a random hue of light to dark yellow in spots. The buckteeth could be fixed and eventually were. The yellow wasn't bleached out until I was in high school and new technology made "bleaching" teeth affordable. While the yellow was gone the mark remained.

I distinctively have two memories of Sarah Lewis. The first is her vehemenently telling Brandy Morowski to say "No" when I asked her out at Skate Castle in the Sixth Grade. The second is her asking me why I never brushed my teeth. Ouch. I brush my teeth twice a day! Nothing hurts a kids ego more than a mean girl. I never did like her.

With trauma aside, I have never really been good with my teeth. I brushed mostly because our mother made us, but I can't say I ever really enjoyed brushing my teeth. Spanish inquisitors should have used braces to get information from the Gnostics. "The Iron Maiden is for sissies...put some braces on those heretics." I took care of my braces but I didn't accessorize them. I brushed and flossed and scrubbed in between them with that little crooked brush. I had plenty of bloody gums from them, and once was speared in the side of the mouth by a wire that broke loose. Some people put little colored bands around them. I didn't care.

Before braces I had a Frankel. I have no idea how to spell the name of the genius that made this thing, but it was big, it was pink, and I couldn't talk with it in my mouth. What a horrible thing to do to a Sixth Grader. I think I dug that thing out of the trash at school at least once a week. There it sat on my lunch tray all wrapped in tissue because no one wanted to look at it. I didn't want to look at it either, but my parents paid some masochist to make it for me. It was only a step up from headgear on the freak scale. I was really afraid of having headgear. What kind of social life could you ever dream of having if you wore head gear to school. I present my case: the only girl in our Elementary School who had head gear was a band geek in High School and aspired to be a librarian. Now that I am older I wished I played any instrument better and I love the library, but when I was young that stigma was a flaming pit of hell.

I had my fair share of cavities. I went from not brushing all the time and getting no cavities, to brushing all of the time and getting two. There was no right or wrong; no matter what I did I may have cavities and I couldn't really do anything about it. I have bad teeth.

Now imagine you are like me, maybe you even had a Frankel, and you have bad teeth. The last time I went to the dentist was when I was in Bootcamp. I had one cavity. Suprisingly they gave me novacaine - I was half expecting a guy to rip it out with a K-bar and then someone would run in and brand a tooth on my arm. Hoorah. It was on the up and up. But in my country if you don't have dental insurance, going to the dentist for a cleaning isn't cheap, let alone going in for a cavity if you know you are probably going to have one. Let's skip to the chase. Bootcamp was a while ago and I need a cleaning to say the least.

What brought me into the dentist a month or so ago was a broken tooth. I think it was decaying from the side. A gray, pulpy mess of decay that had weakened my already sub-par tooth. I actually got to see the inside of my tooth last time I was in the "chair." It was awesome; all beat and decayed. It's broken edges shot out like a Swiss Alp. COOOOL! So after the drilling took place I got to see the cleaned up version of my dental peak. Actually it looked like Mt. St. Helens when the dentist got done removing all the crud. So I had a Cinder Cone Volcano in my mouth. Good to know.

Today I had my volcano reclaimed. I nice mouth full of Amalgamum or whatever it is that they put in the hole. I kept wondering how they put this metal stuff in soft, and it harden quickly to last for years. It's the opposite of "melt in your mouth but not in your hands." I guess it's a chemical, but the scientist in me is always curious about these things. As I lay there staring at the cieling pondering such pearls of wisdom, I had a moment. I was looking beyond those working over me at that spot in the ceiling. You know that spot where every dentist hangs the picture of a kitten frolicking, or Garfield saying "hang in there." I found myself remembering every one of those horrible posters every time I had a filling. I remembered the creaking noise the filling material made as it was smeared into my tooth. The scraping noises, the suction hose. I had a lot of dental memories that have been stagnant for quite some time. And then I thought about something else. My dentist speaks English well and his associate speak ok. When they speak to me of course they speak in English. But as I was being worked on I was witness to a strange scene. Lights, creaking, spit and metal. Two people standing over me talking to each other in a foreign language that I only understood randomly. I started to think "what would it be like to be laying on a doctor's bed on some foreign battlefield, while someone you don't know and can't understand does his or her best to patch you up." At that point you're helpless or else you wouldn't be there. You just watch and listen while your fate may rest in the hands of a total stranger.

At that point I realized we put our faith in each other ever day. I know my tooth is no big deal, but having that experience just reminded me of how much we need each other. Everyone. Nobody can do it all alone. I can do a lot of stuff, but I couldn't operate on myself. For instance I can't teach myself Arabic. I can do some of the work, but someone else must fill in the blanks. I suppose on a grand scale we need each other to "fill in the blanks." Being in a foreign country and surrounded by different cultures and opinions, it's kind of nice knowing that somewhere here I am filling in. Like Syria has some sort of cavity and I am the wonder-metal. I'm not saving anyone's life right now, but who knows what will happen from all that I have done! Fillings of the world unite!