Gold Crown

Don’t be envious. but today, I went to the dentist.

My magnified 10x smile and charcoaled tongue

Do you have a good dental story? Are your teeth straight? Without teeth, we would have a different kind of face. Without bones, we would have a different kind of body.

Sam, who did my dental x-rays. was courteous to me. I didn’t want to make a fuss, but I was fa-fa-fa-fa freezing. The dentist office was colder than the OR, both kept below zero to prevent the spread of pathogens. My teeth were chattering, making it difficult to relax and open my mouth for the x-ray bitings, so she covered me with a cozy, flannel blanket as I zipped off my ice vest. It holds 11 ice blocks. Sam is the name I would have chosen for myself, but I would let you call me Sammy.

Melissa, who was the dentist, wore a set of dental loupes and used a sickle probe to explore my mouth and check each tooth. Precisely speaking, a loupe is used at a close distance from the dentist’s eye. My privacy had been invaded. I pulled the security blanket up over my neck and most of my exposed summer sun. Could she read all the adjectives on the tip of my tongue? Could she see all the questions dangling from my roof? What exactly could she see with those loupes? My teeth felt closterphobic, anorexic.

She rinsed my mouth using a water pick as I swished and spit the sticky plaque into an aspirator vacuum. I folded the blanket, marking the end of the examination. I could now speak. “So, what’s the prognosis?”

“One cavity and your gold crown will possibly need to be replaced with porcelain. I won’t know for sure until I get a better look at it next month.” she explained. I was speechless. The thought of losing my gold crown was like going to hell. I wrapped the ice vest around my chest and tightened up the Velcro straps.