Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …
The sound of sleep? Er, not exactly. A wasp mad as hell? Closer, but only in a very flimsy metaphorical sense. A dentist’s drill?
Ouch, you’ve got it! Now flash your whitest Colgate smile in celebration and join me in the dentist’s office. I was hanging out there recently and I know you are just dying to hear about it.
First up some sort-of confessions.
Confession No. 1: I hadn’t been to the dentist for … well … let’s say long enough ago for me to be stingy with the truth. Okay, let’s agree on three years, give or take 15.
Confession No. 2: Toothaches make terrible bed companions. It took a few sleepless nights for me to overcome a pathological dread of seeing the dentist.
So finally I found myself in the waiting room, looking at glossy mags full of Hollywood smile makeovers, wondering whether I could become a pin-up if I had a set of Tom Cruise pearly whites.
My teeth esteem began to plummet rapidly before this array of dazzling dental deities. Have Celine Dion’s gums been declared a national treasure? I sank into the chair, head swirling with images of cavities, crowns and extractions.
I recalled the youthful trauma of once-a-term visits to the dentist. Perhaps that was when my phobia began, back in England long ago.
The headmaster’s wife always made the arrangements, trying hard to get little punks ready in time.
Invariably I was late and looking a scruff, teeth sticky with wine gums.
“You will get a terrible thrashing when you return,” she yelled once as I clambered into the taxi.
“She seems vexed,” the driver murmured.
Actually, the threat of a terrible thrashing proved a welcome distraction from what lay ahead.
The dentist had this knack of pick, pick, picking remorselessly at the sensitive bits of my teeth. Pictures danced before me of my nerves shredded and dangling like crepe paper streamers.
There was something else I noticed: the more diligent I was about brushing between dentist appointments, the greater my chance of fillings.
The deduction was unignorable: don’t brush nearly as much. Thus developed the habit of a lifetime.
Thus ended my chances of becoming a pin-up. Thus I was here in a Barrhead dentist’s waiting room, a million miles from Hollywood.
“When did you last see a dentist?” I was asked.
Ah yes, that question. As predictable as a filling.
“About a year ago,” I squirmed. “Maybe longer.”
I was ushered into the dentist’s chair. The way I felt, it might as well have been the electric variety.
“Would you open wide, please?”
Ah yes, that other question. More a polite command, actually.
Opening my mouth to a stranger was the moment I had dreaded more than anything.
What horrors would his expert, all-seeing eyes detect? I half expected him to exclaim “Oh my God” and faint, before donning a facemask and ordering an army of assistants equipped with breathing apparatus to fumigate my gums.
“Are they the worst teeth you have ever seen?” I stammered.
He smiled.
“They aren’t the worst teeth I’ve seen today.”
I felt almost delirious with relief. I lay back and thought of England, famous for its meadows, pubs, guildhalls and citizens with bad teeth.
With each visit, I got braver.
As the cavities and notches vanished with painless ease, and the marvels of modern surgery became ever more apparent, something long-forgotten began to emerge … my mega-watt smile.
Watch out Hollywood, here I come!
