I am an incredibly lucky
bastard. This does not, however, prevent
me from bouts of unfounded anxiety. My
pathological fear of wasps might stem from never having been stung. I apply this irrational pessimism to my
health as well. I am never ill – much to
the envious disdain of friends and family, who are goaded into wishing me ill-health
every time I taunt them with the boast, “I do not suffer from human disease,
because I’m fucking Superman.” (For the record, “fucking” is used in its
adjectival sense there, not as a verb.)
Nevertheless, I often fret over any tiny imperfection in case it might
be some form of CERTAIN DEATH. I am too
proud (*scared) to actually bother a doctor with any concerns, except once when
I had chest pains and it turned out to be caused by eating my dinner in front
of the telly too often.
Which brings me to
dentists. As a child, I had one tooth
pulled out and one filling. Not bad for
someone whose mother must have been on commission from Tate and Lyle. As an adult, I stopped going to the dentist
for about ten years, but since our kids needed to be taken, I have attended
regularly and only had one additional filling and a reboot of my first filling. So, yes, I am lucky with my teeth.
But I still loathe and
fear every visit to the dentist.
Me and the kids had an
appointment this morning. The panic was
evident in the poo I had before leaving the house. I won’t disgust you with the details. I feel the identifier “panic” before the word
“poo” pretty much says it all. It isn’t
a warm day, but by the time we’d arrived, my shirt looked like it had done a
series of Tenko, it had that Japanese-held POW clinginess to it.
Dental surgeries are by
their nature, quiet and clean places.
But this merely enhances their chilling nature. Horror feeds off that silence. Dental surgeons and assistants creep past the
waiting room door in scrubs and face masks like disciples of Joseph Mengele,
freaking you out with sinister, devilish smiles. The waiting room is adorned with photographs
of teeth. Not nice teeth. Fucking disgusting teeth. I don’t understand why dentists feel it
necessary to show us how shit our mouths WOULD look if we DIDN’T come
here. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WE ARE HERE – WE WON’T GET SHITTY TEETH
LIKE THAT! I mean, gums are pretty
gruesome anyway, but to plaster a wall in blown-up images of Shane MacGowan’s
dental history serves no purpose other than to inspire more fear and nausea.
This same strategy was
employed in the maternity ward where our son was born. There was a poster claiming to be reassuring,
telling us not to worry if our baby came out looking a little odd or misshapen,
because that was normal. And to
substantiate this assertion, it then showed a gallery of about 30 ABNORMAL
new-born babies, with elongated heads, Picasso-esque features and skin like a rhino’s diseased ball-bag. At first
glance, you’d believe it was an anthology of Doctor Who's enemies.
Returning to the dentist…
Both of my kids went in
before me and came out within minutes.
Neither had any problems. One
half of my brain attempted to fool the other half by thinking, “The kids are
fine, so I should be too!” [No logical link]
“The dentist isn’t checking carefully enough, so I should get away with
it” [Not a logical aspiration]. And then
the other half of my brain fought back and exclaimed, “This is the perfect
set-up for an ironical outcome.”
It’s that fear of an
ironical outcome that I am often plagued with.
Like when I put the car in the garage for a seemingly small problem, I fear
it’ll cost hundreds to resolve. Going to
the dentist, with its fear of the unknown, where the judgement of one person
can cost you dearly, is just like putting your car in the garage, but with
added physical pain to bolster the financial one.
They have this new thing
now where you have to put safety glasses on as soon as you get in the dentist’s
chair. Dark safety glasses. So you can’t see what they’re doing. The chair menacingly reclines, and she pulls
the retractable lamp down from the ceiling, asking if I’ve had any problems
recently. But her fingers have already
stretched my cheeks apart, like a vet delivering a calf, and in my head I want
to ask, “DO YOU EXPECT ME TO TALK?” but I know the answer will be, “NO, MR BASTARD,
I EXPECT YOU TO DIE.”
Then it gets all fucking
Bletchley Park, as she checks each tooth and speaks in code
to her assistant. I hear a series of
numbers and letters and I panic, thinking WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY MEAN? I am certain they
mean something bad, particularly if she pauses for too long on one tooth, or
says “zero zero.”
ARGH! ZERO ZERO? THAT MUST MEAN THEY’RE GOING TO PUT ME TO
SLEEP AND EXPERIMENT ON ME AND I’LL WAKE UP WITH MY TEETH SOWN INTO MY ANUS AND
THEY’LL TAKE A PHOTO OF MY BLEEDING TOOTHLESS MOUTH AND PUT IT IN THE WAITING
ROOM NEXT TO A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY FREAKISH TOOTH-FILLED BOTTOM!
But in reality, what
happened today was that my teeth were fine, it cost a mere £18 for all of us
and I texted my wife to update her on the outcome with the boast WE ARE THE
FUCKING TOOTH KINGS.
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