Ted, who writes Musings of an Old Man posted one, “Teeth Problems”, and reminded me of how much going to the dentist traumatized me. I’ve linked to his article (via title bar) but add a cautionary line for the squeamish, it might hit a nerve.
Dentist, the mention of the word sends my nervous system into Defcom 3. When I was growing up I went to one who took lessons from Boris Karloff on how to scare children through the use of psychological and actual pain. He understood the concept of pending doom, fear created in the dark corners of a child’s mind, the kind that works out details of the “yet to be experienced”; just the opposite of unbridled joy that builds prior to going to Disney World or looking forward to a birthday party.
Ted has a picture of an antique dentist drill, an apparatus of ingenious design from an earlier era; possibly taken from an old Vincent Price horror movie set. My dentist, the one from childhood, had one that put an exclamation mark on the word terror. I had plenty of time to study the mechanical monster, pulleys and elbow joints of metal with a handle that resembled a Jedi hand saber on the end. Instead of rubber banding as a means of driving the pulleys, at least if memory serves, there were some kind of flexible metal tubes, like a smooth serrated stainless steel chain that might be used as a necklace except long enough to extend from one end of the apparatus to the other.
He would test the machine, prime the fear mechanism in my brain; a low roar was produced as the floor absorbed its vibration and transferred it to the chair in which I was sitting. There was a mechanical noise that accompanied the vibration from the motor that drove the spinning pulleys, the blur of an endless linked tube of driving belts adjusting as the elbows aligned to match the desired angle of attack. “Open a little wider, there, now hold it.”
Once the drill came in contact with the tooth surface there was a noticeable drain on the entire system causing it to change sounds and vibration; a system which now produced an ominous pulse, a slowed chunking sound as if the drill bit was tearing bits of my tooth off rather than carefully passing through and removing the decayed portions. I could feel bits and pieces that had been cast onto the sides of my tongue awaiting removal.
Child protection folks would have brought him up on charges except dentists are on the list of untouchables. I watched a movie the other day, “Nanny McPhee”, an excellent children’s film with Emma Thompson. Somehow I could see Nanny McPhee taking the children to a dentist, one very much like the dentist I had to endure, as a means of getting their attention, maybe calling it lesson “Two”.
I can see the tip of her walking stick being lifted slightly, the children catching a whiff of danger about to befall them as static electricity gathered from around the floor directly beneath Nanny McPhee; then, thump, all of them would be helplessly restrained from exiting dentist’s chairs that miraculously appeared in their house. Each child would have to watch and wait while a clumsy man poked and prodded; rubber gloved hands covered with slime in their mouths, never washing as he attended each child one after another, drilling here and there until the lesson was over. “Please, Nanny McPhee, may we brush our teeth after each meal?” Nanny McPhee smiles as the children notice yet another blemish disappear from her cheek.
I don’t recall my dentist’s name; just as well since I have the ability to hire a reasonably expensive lawyer now. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, the Stephen King crowd with macabre creatures lurking behind the bathroom closet door drooling translucent green slime from their nostrils while sharpening their razor sharp clanking claws prior to an innocent humanoid entering to brush his/her teeth. There would be dark visions cast across the mirror above an old fashioned stand alone sink; shadowy figures of doom in red and black just prior to the beasts skulking out from behind the bathroom closet door that was slowly creaking open, only a little opening at first, just enough to cause a subtle change in the room’s ever chilling temperature. If only for a moment, the briefest of cognizance prior to the beast sinking those claws into the victim, in that moment there would be a likeness of my childhood dentist manifested, a final reminder that none of this would have to have happened if only he/she had brushed more often and had taken the time to floss.
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