New Adventures in Dentistry

I just got back from seeing this woman. We go into a small underground room and she inflicts pain on me with the help of another young lady. Afterwards I pay her handsomely. Yes, I've just been to the dentist.

About two weeks ago I went in for my normal clean and polish. I've not had a filling since my mid-teens, so I had become a bit blasé about the whole thing. I'm not a sweet eater, and I don't drink carbonated soft drinks, so I thought I was pretty safe. Brush twice a day, floss occasionally, and Blob's your uncle.

This time she took x-rays for the first time in two years, and found a small but perfect replica of the Taj Mahal, no only kidding. She found two, yes two, cavities. One in an upper right side molar, and a smaller one in a lower right side molar. Come back on the 11th, she said, and we'll fill them. (You'll have to imagine the strings bit of the score from Psycho that was playing in my head at this time. Actually, perhaps you heard it.)

I talked to a few people, wanting to get some hints, tips, and (I'm ashamed to say) some sympathy. What I got was a surprisingly large amount of grinning and laughter. Some people say that the basis of humour is horrible things happening to somebody else. Well, I certainly made the world a brighter place for my friends and colleagues over the next several days.

In the build up I was surprisingly scared about the whole thing, as well as being very annoyed that I had tooth decay in the first place. I mean, this is Julius. Me. Those sort of things don't happen to me. I don't get people ferreting about inside my head with rapidly spinning steel burrs. Unheard of. Well almost unheard of.

When I was small and too young to sue anyone, I had a dentist. I remember very little about her except that she worked in Beaconsfield, where I spent my formative years, and her name sounded like a hand cream, but she was indeed a dentist.

I can only assume she was in deep hock with the High Wycombe branch of the Carlotti Family. She clearly needed money, and lots of it. She was what you might call a wildcatter. She drilled at the slightest sniff of the suggestion of the barest possibility of decay. Perhaps her thinking was along the lines of "Hey, it's a tooth. Teeth can decay. Better drill, just to be on the safe side." Of course, many of the teeth she drilled were milk teeth, so they were going to fall out soon anyway. And what a waste it would be to let a tooth fall unfilled.

In those days dentists in the UK were paid purely on the basis of work done. If the end of the month was approaching and things had been a bit slow there was always a chance to make up for it by a last big push, a final frenzy of drilling and filling to cover the mortgage and hopefully dissuade Big Tony from practising macramé with what used to be your legs.

In such a situation, who can blame her for cutting back on nonessentials like local anaesthetic? Yes, until today I had never experienced an injection when I went to the dentist. And that is why I was afraid. Very afraid.

How did it go? Pretty well actually. The injections didn't hurt at all, and worked as they should. It was all over in about 70mins 48secs. I wouldn't say it was fun, but it was hugely better than I thought it would be. No pain. I went for white fillings (slightly against my dentists advice). I tend to think that the less toxic heavy metal I carry around in my body the better. They will probably not last as long as amalgam ones, she said. Tough call, especially as I had 17lbs of metal and rubber in my partially numbed mouth at the time she wanted to discuss it. Ah well. We shall see. At least I have retained my dazzling white smile, though you would have to approach from behind with an endoscope to actually see these particular fillings.

I'm just waiting now for the anaesthetic to wear off. It would have been just my style to have stumbled at last into my golden haired (for the sake of argument) soul-mate on the way home, and just droolled and flufped at her until she ran away. This didn't happen, you'll be relieved to hear.

One thing that bothers me is that my bite feels quite different. This was something I hadn't bargained for. My dentist told me to let things settle down for a day or two, unless things were seriously out of whack ("You see, I was actually planning on closing my mouth occasionally, especially in company.") and see how it goes. "If needs be you can pop in again and we can just polish them down a bit", she said lightly, definitely in the manner of a polisher and not a polishee. I'm pretty sure I'll need to go back.

No anaesthetic will be used for that little job I expect. Tony Carlotti, I hope you are happy.