Spit and Polish

In a bow to the marketplace, my dentist is accepting appointments at 7 o’clock in the morning. I received two reminder calls yesterday and walked into his office at 6:59. In the waiting room were a couple of other consumer-oriented touches---bottled water, teabags, hot water, and coffee.

[These niceties will all be swept away if President Rodham introduces socialized medicine, which does appear dicier after Katrina---would you want the same guys who were in charge of FEMA to perform your open-heart surgery? We just may have reached the peak of the current government expansion cycle, as the ineffectiveness of public agencies has been laid bare. One wonders whether this is another of Karl Rove’s diabolical moves; the incompetence of the Federal government hurts the Bush Administration’s standing right now, but growing distrust of the public sector furthers the conservative agenda in the long run.]

The dental assistant hustled me to the chair and asked how my electric toothbrush was working. I replied with the expected “pretty good”, although we both knew that my opinion counted for nothing. In a few minutes she would see the truth. It’s futile to lie to medical professionals; I started to think ahead about what I was going to say to my doctor when he asks how my diet was going and I’m seven pounds heavier than last time.

She scraped and polished my teeth, all the while gushing about how my plaque score was much higher. I didn’t know plaque had a score, I didn’t know how the grading system worked, I didn’t know what my score was last time and this time, but nevertheless a small part of me felt pleased, because if the eternal galactic database exists, this will be a favorable addition to my permanent record. So the electric toothbrush was pretty good after all.

My dentist came in to give my teeth the once over. While Stan inspected my fillings, he and the assistant swapped tales of the convention they attended at the San Francisco Moscone Center. A note of excitement crept into their voices as they talked about “advanced periodontological instrumentation” and “soft-tissue laser techniques”. Whatever their specialty, I enjoy listening to professionals talk to each other. I’ve overheard conversations by bridge engineers, neurosurgeons, and java programmers. I usually can follow about 20 percent of the dialogue, and it’s an interesting exercise to fill in the blanks.

Stan voiced his recurring concern about a couple of teeth that may need crowns. I nodded, as I always do. Maybe next year. I made an appointment for March, a vote of confidence in the future.