By Darrin Frankel



I don't like going to the dentist.  I mean I really  don't like going
to the dentist!  I feel like I should make that admission first.  It's
a distaste that's rooted deeply within my brain from years of
experience and abuse.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can proceed with my
depiction of my "routine" trip to the dentist's office.

First you have to find a dentist that someone is willing to recommend
to you.  I don't have a regular dentist anymore, he retired a few years
ago and I haven't gone to anybody else consistently since.  Many people
will tell you that their dentist is good, but that's only because they
think it's supposed to feel like that.  So you pick one and you call to
make an appointment.

I just know that all dentists must take a class in school in telephone
practice.  Their nurses always sound so nice and caring.  They laugh at
all jokes, and express great interest in your vacation plans.  They do
this for a living, and they've very good at it.  Don't fall for it!

So I make the appointment and I make sure that I don't eat before going 
because I'd hate to have them find remnants of breakfast and scold me 
further (they automatically scold you for not brushing/flossing/rinsing 
enough or the right way).  I get to the office and sit in the waiting 
room until it is my turn.

Sports Illustrated, Harpers, Fortune, I don't care what you're reading; 
when you hear that shriek from behind the door of another patient being 
executed, it's impossible not to break out into a cold sweat.  I 
continue to wait.  Finally they call my name and escort me to the 
nearby chamber of horrors.  I anxiously look for signs of blood from 
the previous body, but they're too clever for that.  Dentists are 
anal-retentive in their obsession for pristine cleanliness.

I sit down in the chair.  Have you ever taken a good look at a 
dentist's chair?  It's not like a barber shop chair.  In a barber's 
chair your feet rest comfortably on a platform, and your head is free 
to move however you wish.  Not so in the dentist's stockade.  Your head 
is clamped into position, and you lie back with your feet elevated.  
You're not going anywhere in a hurry!

They clip that piece of paper/plastic around my neck.  It can make an 
adult look like a two year old.  The office sentry leaves me alone and 
I notice sitting on the doll-sized table next to me there's an 
doll-sized cup of red ListoChlorine on it.  It's all part of the 
process of breaking you down.  If that doesn't humiliate and degrade 
you, nothing will.  Then just as I'm looking at all the bizarre, 
highly-polished gadgetry, in walks the hygienist.

I'm sure you probably know the joke about how dentists always tell you 
never to try to clean your teeth with a sharp metal object, but then 
what's the first thing they reach for when you sit down?   Long 
forgotten is the caring, gentle persona on the telephone.  I was now 
mouth-to-face with a brutal executioner armed with a metal scraper.  I 
can't help but think about Lawrence Olivier's maniacal Nazi torturing 
Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man", as I sit there in agony.

This raises a good point.  What does one think about while strapped 
into the masochism chair?  You have to think about something other than 
what's going on or you'll scream and be punished for not behaving.  I 
haven't yet found a fool-proof diversion for those moments, but I have 
tried various options.  If there is a window in front of me, and there 
usually is (dentists do this to further torment you that there are 
people walking outside who aren't even aware of the suffering going 
on), I will try to concentrate on the people that go by.  If there are 
trees outside the window, I might try focusing on a tree branch.  If 
there is not a window in view, I am sometimes forced to roll my eyes 
around the room I'm trapped in.  This is generally the worst option.  
The artwork on the walls is invariably some fingerpainting job that the 
dentist's child did in class.  Needless to say, if there is any red in 
the picture, this is not a good thing to look at as you listen to the 
hygienist dig in with that pick-thing.

After she has finished gouging me, she invites me to "rinse and spit."
As though these words have some profound meaning, I anxiously grab for
the Barbie doll cup to my side and take a swig of its contents.  I then 
turn and spit into the swirling doggy drinking fountain.  The carnage 
that spills out of my mouth answers the unspoken question of "how bad
is it?"

She tells me to floss more and my gums won't be so sensitive next time.
Hah, next time!  If I live through this, I'm sailing to a deserted
island that doesn't have dentists.  Or at least I'll move to Russia
where they don't care what your teeth look like.

In any event, she leaves me; but not without the ominous "the doctor
will be right with you."  Haven't I endured enough?!  I mean at least
in boxing they go to a neutral corner in the event of a knockdown.  I 
had to fight the challenger and the champion.

My eyes quickly dart around the room, looking for an escape route.  The 
door I came in was the only exit; and they'd have guards patrolling the
corridor.  I was up the creek and I knew it.  More of the mental 
torture: I have to sit and wait for more punishment.

Finally the dentist walks in.  He gives me the once over and says in a 
voice that adults usually save for preschoolers, "now let's have a look
at you."  Obviously his hygienist had learned well from this man, as he
also goes right for the metal attack hook.

As he systematically drives his tool into every tooth and pulls it out, 
he asks me if I have been having any trouble lately.  I want to say 
yes: there was a woman in here a couple of minutes ago that had given 
me a lot of trouble.  But I don't think that would go over well.

The patient-Dentist relationship is a peculiar one, to say the least.  
I mean, how many of us would recognize our dentist on the street in 
civilian clothes?  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't recognize my
dentist unless I had a magnifying glass and a real close look at his 
eye.  After all, that's the only way I ever see him!  I know his facial
pores better than I know his height and weight.  Certainly this is no 
ordinary doctor.

I've always found it strange that dentists have to go through all of 
the years of training that a general practicing doctor has to endure 
before being granted their degree.  I mean, it's not like someone is 
going to come in with the flu one minute, and then someone else will 
walk in with an unknown disease they need diagnosed.  They do teeth.  
How complicated can it be?!  It's not like the dentist is going to have 
to find your teeth first.  Teeth are pretty easy to recognize too.  The 
two rows of white (or off-white) things in your mouth are probably 
teeth.

Eventually the dentist tells me that I should be alright, but he wants 
to get a full set of dental x-rays before I go.  So out he goes, and in 
walks the "x-ray technician".  (That "technician" word is going to cost
you, believe me)  Things have improved a bit in the world of dental 
x-rays, I must admit.  They at least recognize that there's something
amiss.  The old days of the guy sticking the film in a piece of 
cardboard, that not even a Swiss Army Knife could penetrate, and asking 
you to bite down on it, are gone.

I once had a guy tell me repeatedly that I wasn't biting down hard 
enough to get the x-ray.  I told him that if I bit down any harder he'd
be getting a picture of a piece of cardboard wedged into my brain!
(These dentists really do lack a proper sense of humor)  These days, 
they take that piece of film and stick it into some kind of soft 
plastic sheath.  They are dentists, however, so they take that piece of 
plastic and put it into a large, hard plastic clamp.  It's the sort of
contraption that looks like it ought to have some deeper purpose than
this.  It doesn't. . .  Next the technician covers you with a large
leaden bib.  This is to prevent you from running away.  After he has 
pushed this gizmo into your mouth and gums, he leaves the room!  It's
very disquieting to watch a grown professional hide behind the door
while you are left to take a blast from this one-eyed menace aimed 
directly at your head.  I don't know what goes through anybody else's
mind at times like these, but I'm thinking that this lead blanket is in
the wrong place!  Is this x-ray going to make me look like "my brain's
on drugs?"

The dentist called me later that day to tell me why I was going to have 
to come back to fill a cavity.  "Oh, ok," I say.  As though the thought
of returning doesn't consume me with terror.  I need to go back to the
dentist to have a tooth filled... well, like I need one less hole in my 
head!

Well, I survived having my tooth filled; although the dentist used that 
old dentist trick on me -- "while we're here, why don't we fill this 
other one too." Gee, what a truly inspirational idea.  The cruel irony 
of it all is that now, because I didn't take good enough care of my
at-home torture sessions, I have to go to the dentist's office every
four months!  I just hope that somehow all of this mortal suffering is 
improving my chances of getting into Heaven.