Dental Fitness

Every six months or so I find myself in the dentist chair. 

It’s not a chair so much as a technologically advanced seating apparatus, what with its buttons and levers and dials and that sweet curling shape to cradle my spine. Reclining there puts me in the mood for liftoff, for a rush to the stars enduring so many Gs I might pass out.

Which is what makes that ordinary faucet to my left such a strange sight.

I’m no astronaut. And I sense that even if I were a TASA flight genius, the hygienist would rap my knuckles if I dared fiddle with her controls. Except, for some reason, today. Today the hygienist placed a cup under the faucet and told me to fill it and rinse. So surprised was I by the command, I required a second order to comply.

How could I deny her? She hovered over me in full PPE, including a sealed plastic facemask, hood, and white coverall that swished when she moved. Attached to her waist was a pump that sent air through a hose to keep her breathing. A headlamp completed the look, shining in my eyes and preventing me from seeing what I could not believe.

Not only was I allowed to press the button for water, the hygienist handed me the suck-tube, the one normally jammed against my laryngeal pipe to remove my saliva with that sickening gargle. She said, Use it when you need it. So, there lay I as she scraped plaque from my enamel, holding the tube that sucked the air right out of the room.

My mind wanders at the dentist. Some of my greatest creativity happens there in that TASA lift-off zone. Unfortunately for the people back here on earth, I’m in no position to write any of it down and it soon dissipates, either drawn into the suck-tube or rinsed and spit down the drain of the ordinary sink beside me in my capsule.

Then my thoughts get flushed by a more insidious convention: chit-chat.

I guess I can understand that the hygienist wants to talk. It’s the loneliest profession in the world, especially from behind a plastic facemask. But why—WHY?—did the person with eight fingers and two implements in my mouth insist on asking questions? Every time her sentences ended on that upward lilt, through her mask and above the suck-tube thing and all the scraping, I didn’t know exactly how to answer, so I just sucked out some saliva and answered, “Nguh-huh.”

No doubt Dentology will continue making great technological strides. Six months from now, or twelve, I hope to sit in my TASA rocket chair and not even have to open my mouth for a cleaner, brighter smile. But in all honesty, I’d open my mouth wide enough to snap my jaw if I could avoid answering all the questions I didn’t understand.

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