Open Wide

Although it’s been nearly 5 years since I had my braces removed, an appointment with the dentist still fills me with a sense of dread and makes me queasy. My tryst with orthodontists began way back when my milk teeth stood firmly rooted to my gums and refused to fall. I had to get all of them extracted since my permanent teeth had started growing right behind them by then. Later, owing to the size of my mouth (apparently the smallest mouth my dentist has ever looked into), my newly grown teeth had to be crammed in and when there wasn’t sufficient space for all of them, I was forced to wear braces followed by retainers. My dad had spent more on my teeth than my entire education up until that point.

Having spent most of my childhood in and out of the dentist’s clinic, you’d think that I’d be used to it by now. However, each visit is as refreshingly unpleasant as the one before. The gruelling process starts in the waiting room, with spotless white tiles, white walls, and neat rows of seats lined up against the walls, all splashed with a blinding white light. Every inch of the walls are covered with certificates of achievement and multiple degrees obtained in universities abroad, which are in all good sense meant to assure patients that they are in safe hands. Instead, what it does is make you realize to your horror that this particular dentist has a whole lot more torture techniques up his sleeves than the average Dr. Muthuswamy down the road. As you wait frightfully for your turn, you see fellow patients crawl out, groaning, moaning, and clutching their swollen cheeks in agony. At long last the receptionist with her satanic smile ushers you in. It’s your turn.

The dentist’s chair - It’s designed along the lines of the medieval Chair of Torture. The dental equipments fitted into the movable tray look distastefully nasty and include a miniature drilling machine with a long and dangerously pointed edge. Now the dentist, with an evil glint in his eye, looks gleefully down at you, his latest victim, and prods away happily in your mouth with a sharp probe.

“Does it hurt now?” *jab*

*groan* “Ooowww.. YES”

*prods elsewhere* “Now?”

“YES!”

*prods again in the first prod-area* “Now??”

“YES YOU RETARD, IT ISN’T GOING TO HURT ANY LESS IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE PRODDING IT WITH THAT TORTURE INSTRUMENT”

It’s a small wonder then that I bit down hard on my dentist’s finger when he was too busy making conversation with my dad to realize that he was prodding my palate incredibly hard. Take that, you sadistic prick! I swore that I’d never go back to see a dentist again once I was through with my braces and retainers, and I would have kept my word too if it wasn’t for the killer toothache that victimized me two days ago. It got so bad that I just had to get it checked today. My my... all the memories that came rushing back the minute I took my place in the chair overwhelmed me - the blinding light, the smell of antiseptics and some sort of plaster combined, the rubber gloves, the horrid dental instruments, the unbearable pain, all of it. To my good fortune though, it turned out that the toothache was a result of a sinus problem I have and I was asked to consult an ENT specialist, which was probably the best thing I’ve heard any dentist say to me. Phew!