Where to from here -
One hour and 15 minutes is just enough time for me to get properly terrified. I'm going to the dentist. I am going to the dentist in St. Anthony because Flowers Cove doesn't have a dentist, which isn't sitting well with the social activist hiding inside the 27-year-old chicken that I most certainly am.
So terrified am I of the dentist that I have become obsessed with my teeth, my problem teeth, for what good it has done me. In the last three years alone I have been to the dentist no less than a dozen times; many dentists, in different provinces, some of whom didn't speak English.
And I have excellent dental hygiene - now. In fact, you might say I'm a bit of a Nazi when it comes to brushing my teeth. I've borrowed dental floss at parties and flossed right there, under a tree, in front of a hundred or so ridiculously handsome actors.
But alas, they revolt - my teeth that is. They revolt against me for those years between five and 10 when I was less than religious about their care. In the beginning I didn't much concern myself with them because, as everyone knew, I was getting another set, an opportunity to hit restart on my personal dental Nintendo.
I would saunter in to the bathroom (at mom and dad's insistence) and rub a generous portion of toothpaste on my tongue, an ingenious cover up or so I thought. Proudly strut into the livingroom and give dad a full on Colgate breath test, off to bed, fooled them again. Why I didn't just brush my teeth I have no idea? Perhaps the little counter-revolutionary was taking form even then. Either way, the only person I was fooling was myself - now I'm paying five-fold for every candy, literally.
Going to the dentist is like taking your face to the garage. You don't know what's wrong, they do and you have no way of knowing whether or not this person can be trusted. As with mechanics, dentists are rarely trusted. I swear, opening your mouth is akin to opening your hood, but worse. I mean, you can abandon that car if she proves to be too much trouble, you can leave her at the dump, in a pit, hell, park her in the backyard until you figure out what to do or find the money to fix her but your teeth...ah, your teeth wait for no man, not even you.
Their little living calcium deposits in your face and you need them to survive, they are vital to the most fundamental joy on earth - eating. And good grief, the pain is unbearable, everyone can see them, dental infections can kill you.
These are all things running through my mind when Dr. Whoever gives me that disappointed head shake. You know the one, we've all gotten it from the dentist. That head shake that makes you feel like a complete failure in life because you've got a cavity, far more foreboding then Mom's disappointment with your term grades. Oh, such an unimpressed look delivered straight on by a man wearing a mask that happens to hide his absolutely perfect, blinding white teeth. Well of course they're perfect, that's his thing, it's his job. You wouldn't expect a hairdresser to have a bad haircut would you? Jeeze. Need an x-ray, going to be expensive, doesn't look good.
The least appealing aspect of my job is the dental plan of which there is none. No dental insurance leaves me in cold sweats. There you have it, the arts community's dirty little secret; gloat if you want to. No dental insurance, the lot of us. No drug plan either. Have a good laugh at my expense but remember, I really love my work. That's how we arts crowd justify the lack of benefits to ourselves. We pretend all you buggers with insurance hate your jobs. Don't tell us otherwise, please, we need it.
Anyway, so this particular dentist in St. Anthony is not even the St. Anthony dentist. He's a transient, just there filling in while the regular guy is on vacation somewhere. Right on, that's great. My mouth is being probed by someone who I will be unable to locate in less than a week. Brilliant. When he tells me it's serious I start to cry. Yes, that's right, I cried. Not the snot and bawl and chest heaving crying fit you might like to imagine. No, more of a silent, big kid tears betraying you as they roll down your face against your will sort of cry. The kind that makes a sheep in wolves clothing utterly and completely mortified. I leave with a pocket full of prescriptions and a broken spirit.
The thing about antibiotics from the dentist is that you receive them at the very same moment you most want a goblet of wine, not a glass of wine, a goblet. The worst thing being that in times of duress when you most require a strong drink you are unable to have one because, well, you have to take these antibiotics before your face explodes. Lordy, lordy. At least Dr. Whoever wrote me a prescription for courage or as medical professionals call it, Ativan.
A half an hour before my follow-up appointment of doom I have been instructed to take two Ativan, not one but two because Dr. Whoever finds my crying disruptive. I know this is due to his repeatedly giving me the time-out gesture when I tried to interrupt him on my previous visit. What did I do when given the time-out gesture? Well, I looked at my feet of course, shame faced while inside part of me wanted to scream "don't patronize me, we're practically the same age!" But you don't aggravate the person who will likely be placing a drill inside your mouth in a matter of minutes if you can avoid it.
No, best to just stand there examining your shoes, feeling like a proper idiot. So there you have it, the next two years of my dental life have been mapped out for me. Root canals, bridges, implants, I'm gonna try it all. Word to the wise, watch your children brush their teeth now or watch them cry about it in their twenties. Seriously.
(Megan Coles is a writer originally from Savage Cove. She can be reached at megcoles@gmail.com).
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