Apologies for my lack of babble last week, I was pretty busy. This probably stems from my tendency to wait until the night before the test to read all the readings, but that's life for you.
So dentists. My dentists's name is Dr. Slutskin. I kid you not, that is his real honest-to-goodness name. It wasn't until I was about 13 that I realized his name was actually kind of funny. And I'm sure he got a fair amount of shit for it back in the day.
I have been visiting the office of Dr. Slutskin since I first got teeth or whatever. Whenever you first go to the dentist. Age 5? I don't even know. But it's weird because my entire family goes to see this guy (like Grammy and Grandad too) so he knows the general gist of the fam. This is why I continue to be baffled when he forgets my age.
Dr. Slutskin: So. How old are you now?
Me: 21
Dr. Slutskin: Oh.
I mean, every time he asks me this he's literally holding my file. I've been seeing this guy since I wore OshKosh B'Gosh clothes and he still thought I was 19 last time I went in. Guess I can't blame him too much, he does see a lot of people, but really. He remembers intricate details about my teeth because he brings it up during my brother's visits to compare them, but he can't remember that I'm 21 now?
Also, Dr. Slutskin has incredibly hairy hands. I know because they've been up close and personal near my oral orifice plenty of times. I'm talking knuckles and everything. I'm really glad he wears gloves. Another thing he does is tell me what a 'beautiful smile' I have and then tells me that the 'guys'll be all over you!' (if only I had that problem). I'm still unsure if he's actually complimenting my smile, or complimenting himself for the decade of dental work that he performed on my teeth. Too close to call.
And literally I've had over a decade of intense dental work. I've gone through:
8 retainers
1 bracket
2 years of braces (with those stupid rubber bands)
13 teeth pulled
The first teeth I got pulled included both front ones. Result: I hate the "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" song with a fiery burning passion. It's not funny, it's a family friendly method of assholery! I hope the person who came up with that shit dies in a terrible Amish horse and buggy incident. Jerks. I actually still have the nose thing they use to give you laughing gas. It's bright pink and still smells faintly of bubble gum. Laughing gas is the shit because it makes your entire body feel all weird. They just let me put on my N*SYNC cassette and PTFO in the dental chair while they pull teeth out of my head.
The retainers started when I was in first grade. When you first get retainers, your mouth is really confused and all WTF? so you end up talking like you have serious retardation issues. For days. All the other kids teased me about it because first graders are all little assholes. It sucked. I had retainers for another couple years (the kind you crank to expand your mouth because my mouth wasn't large enough for all my teeth), then a bracket as a mouth place holder, then more retainers, then braces, then finally my last set of retainers.
What sucks more than the retainers themselves are the teeth molds for the retainers.The molds are the consistency of silly putty and they're in these metal teeth shaped things that go in your mouth. You have to hold them there for several minutes so that the molds can dry and get an accurate representation of your chompers. This would be fine, except those metal things are HUGE and take up your entire mouth. So much in fact that it activates my gag reflex and I spend the entire time extremely nauseated, deep breathing, freaking out, and attempting to think of unicorns. When I was 12 it was so bad that I actually threw up on myself. You wanna talk about embarrassing? Not only did I puke on myself in front of the dental assistant and my mom and the dentist, I had to walk out of the office with my shirt covered in my own barf. Gross.
Bad but not nearly as sucky as retainer molds are dental x-rays. Now they're actually OK because they developed some new materials for the film, but back in the day they were awful. I remember getting into fights with the dental assistant because I refused to get dental x-rays. Those suckers hurt! They would cut into my gums and I would bleed. It was like trying to keep goddamn diamond cards in your mouth for 30 seconds a piece. And then of course they had to take a flipping photo at every possible angle. What is this? A goddamn mouth photoshoot?! Get those things away from me! Now the film is much more flexible (think craft foam) and I'm much more amicable about getting dental x-rays.
One thing about the dentist that confuses me is the Sucky Straw. It's that thing that sucks up all your spit when they're cleaning your teeth. They used to suck up my spit for me, but recently they've been letting me be the master of my own fluids. I don't handle the responsibility very well. I'm never sure how much spit is Too Much Spit. Often the dental hygienist just grabs my hand and puppeteers me into doing it. Then I feel lame and awkward. Story of my life.
Another thing that confuses me is the tendency of the dental hygienist to talk to you when they have their hands in your mouth. Am I supposed to respond? Are we even having a conversation? The most I can do without looking completely stupid is grunt and possibly nod.
Braces were annoying too. That waxy crap they give you doesn't do jack. My inner cheeks and gums were all shredded and gross. Ew. The only good part of braces were the rubber bands. In 7th grade Intro to Spanish I sat next to this really annoying guy. Whenever he got too much to handle I used my tongue to flick the rubber bands and send gobs of spit his way. Reallllll mature, I know. Young and stupid, remember?
The epitome of my dental adventures didn't even happen at the dentist. It happened at my friend's house for her sleepover birthday party. The next morning we had chocolate chip chocolate muffins and milk. I love muffins, but I love them even more warm. I got a second muffin, put it on my plate, and then popped it into the microwave for a minute. Then I went about pouring myself a glass a milk. Some seconds later, my friend goes, "Sam! You're muffin is ON FIRE!" I whip my head around and sure enough, there are purple flames inside the microwave. I slam the milk down, jerk open the microwave door, and blow out the flames. As I gingerly pull the plate out, my muffin looks surprisingly unharmed. My retainers, however, are not nearly as lucky.
Upon eating the first muffin I had put my retainers on my plate. Somehow I forgot about them the second time around and they ended up literally getting nuked. The front metal bar of the top retainer completely melted off. Part of the top retainer had melted into the bottom and there was a burnt gash from that. Thankfully, the my friend's microwave was completely untouched. My parents were both like, 'How the hell do you even do something like that?' and they forced me to be the one to call the dentist office and tell them what happened.
This is basically how that phone conversation went down:
Sam: so....I need to schedule an emergency dental appointment
Dentist office: Ok. What exactly did you do?
Sam: I...uh...I accidentally lit my retainers on fire.
DO: .......you WHAT?
Sam: I accidentally lit my retainers on fire. They accidentally got put in the microwave.
DO: You're telling me that you put your retainers in the microwave?
Sam: it was an accident....
DO: Well we have had people flush their retainers down the toilet, throw them away, and somebody's bulldog ate theirs once, but we have never had anybody light theirs on fire before.
Sam: so does that mean I can get an appointment?
DO: I'll see what I can do.
Result: the top retainer was completely ruined but the bottom was salvageable. Dad made me pay him back the $135 retainer replacement costs. No bueno.
Now I have lovely teeth. Or so Dr. Slutskin tells me every time I visit him.
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