It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

It may not be the very least favorite place in my world, but it comes pretty darn close.  This morning was my scheduled six-month check up/cleaning, and I was prepared for the usual tsk-tsking about the sad condition of my mouthful of teeth.  The hygienist never seems to come over to my side on the issue - why can't I just have fewer teeth?  In fact, why is it necessary for humans to be assigned a set of, what is it, 36?  Isn't there some redundancy in that?  Instead, what I hear is, I need to floss more, use a mouth rinse regularly, and stop eating Snickers bars as an apres-lunch (apres with that little backwards accent mark above the e) snack.  No, the hygienist did NOT say that about the Snickers bars; she doesn't know about them.

Deep breathing gets me through any sitting, but it doesn't work when my jaw is being pressed so hard that oxygen - my very good friend - concludes that there is no discernible pathway to my lungs.  Oxygen takes the high road, and I'm left with the choice of either passing out or most inarticulately communicating that, "ahhhng url reeeee!"  I choose life.

There is a most wonderful up-side to the dental chair. . . after the initial twenty minutes or so of jackhammering to remove plaque buildup.  One can become - by focusing on the fish mobile in the corner of the room - very reflective.  It begins by noting the fascinating differences between those vividly painted fish.  Before you know it, you're drafting thank you notes, deciding on a new color palette for your living room, heck, you're adding on an additional 500 square feet to your already sizable house, petitioning the Spanish government to accept your new word entry, saltacharcos (nm puddle-jumper) into the Diccionario Oxford de Español.  (Rather than engage in the lengthy explanation of how a word becomes accepted into the Dictionary, I may have grossly misled my students on that score.)

In any event, and despite all the efforts to rinse and spit and wipe with crinkly bib, I leave the dentist's office with that gritty feeling still in my mouth.  I'm confident, however, that everyone I acknowledge with my exaggeratedly wide, teeth-baring smile will observe how white and beautiful my teeth are.  And with all that time in the chair to reflect and sort things out, I cannot help but think: isn't life grand?!  So what if next month I have to return to have my cracked molar "assessed"?  That white-knuckled ride is a whole month away.