A visit to the dentist is ripe with blogging material. Today was no different. It was my biannual cleaning ritual. This is an hour spent with a dental hygienist or a mouth sweeper. The person, man or woman who works at the dentist office is assigned the job of using a warm water spray that is pointed into my oral cavity and with proper directional control used to remove the detritus that has accumulated with constant eating for the past several months.
Today said cleaner was a British woman. Let us call her Angie to protect her sanity. Being persistently curious about my surroundings I like to inquire into the personal lives of the people that are in close proximity to me. At least for the next hour. I do not want a stranger just taking liberties with my gums and molars. So we start with the formal pleasantries of what our parents have named us respectively. After getting past that awkwardness Angie informs me that we are going to need X-rays. By we I mean I was going to be blasted with these pesky rays. She was going to do the blasting. You see dental professionals in America like to take pictures of your internal dental structure every 12 months given the propensity of this country to keep consuming food. Cannot blame them. It is like tire inspection and rotation every 5,000 miles. Wear and tear needs to be looked at.
So I got situated in an upright laz-boy kind of chair next to the vacuously smiling lady in the Invisalign commercial and Angie appeared with the lead jacket. Customarily she explained that the apron (what she called it) was to prevent likelihood of cancer. You see they want to impress on you that you are a vital asset responsible for all the staff and your untimely demise might curtail future revenue in the off chance those radiations trigger a melanoma. I jokingly told her that I should wear this when I smoked. She just stared back.
After a series of jaw twisting maneuvers we were done with the buzz blast of the precisely aimed X-rays. The resulting pictures appeared on a computer monitor to my side. I could use them for the next Halloween party. But I was told to get up and head over to the other chair where the cleaning would take place. Each time I go it seems like I walked into the Winchester house. There are an untold number of hidden rooms inside this seemingly tiny office.
This room other than having a different wall color had the same exact hardware, which predominantly featured the 100 position recliner. This is where I was advised to lie down.
Angie was by now very curious about what sort of character she was about to clean and decided to open the line of additional questioning. So where are you from? I told her I was from erstwhile Bombay and asked if she had made it to India. She said she had not but would like to. I asked about her upbringing. She mentioned she was from the UK. I specifically asked which island as if I had intimate awareness of each of the miserable weather outcroppings in the Atlantic. She said England. I could detect the accent but was not sure if she was merely faking it for novelty sake. She was not.
It was time to work. "Do you use a power toothbrush?" she inquired. I told her I used A toothbrush and holding it steady I jumped up and down to get the cleaning action on my teeth. She burst out laughing. Then she proceeded to explain what was about to happen and began with the compressed water jet to clean the teeth. 'Lots of tartar on the lower teeth' she exclaimed suddenly. I raised my hand and asked - was that British for plaque? No she said - plaque is soft and when it gets hard its tartar. Both in America and England. The technical term was calculus. Not the math kind she clarified.
Tar is ghastly and when used in this portmanteau fashion is certainly grisly. I have tartar? It is not common for me to lick food of the road you know. After further jet spraying my teeth were deemed cleaned. Finally an inspection by the dentist herself. Someone wearing a different colored paper smock and doctor title. Before parting she asked where I had met my wife. So I explained that she and I met at work and to comply with our 1 for 1 ratio she informed she had met her posh southerner husband in London. I learned something about the English in that hour I spent at the dentist. The Englanders still have a tradition of dividing their country as northerners and southerners with the northern cousins being country bumpkins and the south being full of snooty and posh people.
Also the entire country seems to have a fascination with the monarchy (by and large) and the explanation she proffered made sense. "You Americans have your Hollywood royalty and we have our Queen mum."
Time to stay mum and head out the office.
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