Dr. Dan can...
Well it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned my teeth…in fact I believe you’d have to go back to the very first entry into this journal, back to the days before Blogger when I would have to painstakingly rewrite and recopy the HTML just to update, to find the post where they’re mentioned. I only bring this up, because yesterday I went to the dentist and now I have a temporary crown where before I had only an old tooth and filling. Dr. Dan has been our dentist for a while now, working out of a converted garage off of Pacific Highway, out past Spanaway but before you reach the Wagon Wheel Grill. Dewy and Ham told us about him when we first moved into the Park and since having kids makes you think a little harder about keeping your teeth, if only for self defence, we started going on a regular basis.
I like him well enough I guess. In a lot of ways it feels oxymoronic to use the words “like” and “dentist” in the same breath—it’s an abusive relationship to be sure, and while I know that he truly tries to be gentile, is there any profession that seems to have come less far in the past 50 years? While the world is embracing lasers and computer technology, dentists are still saying “this might pinch a bit” as they shove a needle into your gums. I guess I’m not being exactly fair, you don’t have to sit in the chair for 20 minutes getting numb like you used too, and the fillings are less silver and more natural looking, but the principals seem to be relatively unchanged from when I was a kid.
The real reason we still go see Dr. Dan is that of all the dentists I have been to, he is the only one who doesn’t use dental dams—says he never has. I myself have never understood how any dentists have managed to get a customer to come back after having had one used to fill a cavity. If ever there was a device designed by a technician and not an end user, designed for the torture of semi-clautraphobic, pnigerophobic people all over the world, the dental dam is it. How many of us live in fear that the last sound we’ll ever hear before suffocating to death in the hands of a small rubber square, is the piercing whine of a grinding dental drill? More than would care to admit it, is my guess—way more.
It kept me out of a dentist’s office for years, Itellyouwhat.
My mouth and jaw are still pretty sore today, and in two short weeks I gotta go back and get the permanent crown put in. Dr. Dan said the hard part was done and the next visit should be a lot shorter and a lot less uncomfortable. I didn’t ask if they were gonna have to shoot my mouth full of Novocain again and I guess that’s for the best. Brace for the worst and everything else is cake, right?
I like him well enough I guess. In a lot of ways it feels oxymoronic to use the words “like” and “dentist” in the same breath—it’s an abusive relationship to be sure, and while I know that he truly tries to be gentile, is there any profession that seems to have come less far in the past 50 years? While the world is embracing lasers and computer technology, dentists are still saying “this might pinch a bit” as they shove a needle into your gums. I guess I’m not being exactly fair, you don’t have to sit in the chair for 20 minutes getting numb like you used too, and the fillings are less silver and more natural looking, but the principals seem to be relatively unchanged from when I was a kid.
The real reason we still go see Dr. Dan is that of all the dentists I have been to, he is the only one who doesn’t use dental dams—says he never has. I myself have never understood how any dentists have managed to get a customer to come back after having had one used to fill a cavity. If ever there was a device designed by a technician and not an end user, designed for the torture of semi-clautraphobic, pnigerophobic people all over the world, the dental dam is it. How many of us live in fear that the last sound we’ll ever hear before suffocating to death in the hands of a small rubber square, is the piercing whine of a grinding dental drill? More than would care to admit it, is my guess—way more.
It kept me out of a dentist’s office for years, Itellyouwhat.
My mouth and jaw are still pretty sore today, and in two short weeks I gotta go back and get the permanent crown put in. Dr. Dan said the hard part was done and the next visit should be a lot shorter and a lot less uncomfortable. I didn’t ask if they were gonna have to shoot my mouth full of Novocain again and I guess that’s for the best. Brace for the worst and everything else is cake, right?
I’m looking forward to more cake—have I jinxed myself already?
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