Tony Deyal
LADY ALICE Hillingdon, wife of the Second Baron (George) Hillingdon (1912), commenting on the status of her marital relations, is reputed to have said: "I am happy now that George calls on my bedchamber less frequently than of old. As it is, I now endure but two calls a week, and when I hear his steps outside my door, I lie down on my bed, close my eyes, open my legs and think of England."
My calls on the dentist are far less frequent than George's calls upon Lady Alice, once every two years if I can help it and definitely not twice a week, but the formula is similar although anatomically different. I endure by lying down on the dentist's chair, closing my eyes, opening my mouth and thinking of this, that and the other.
'BLUETOOTH'
My problem this time seems to be cellular. My desktop, laptop, palmtop and mobile are all capable of 'Bluetooth', and it seems that it is a communicable disease. Actually, 'Bluetooth', the process by which these devices are able to communicate with one another using wireless transmission, is named after Harald Bluetooth who was not a dentist but King of Denmark over 1,000 years ago. He was a great communicator and united Norway and Denmark. My dentist, on the other hand (the one in my wallet, not the one in my mouth), is a great extractor, taking both my money and my molar simultaneously.
Another dentist, to whom I had been going for several weeks for root canal surgery, told me after my fourth visit: "Lie back, relax, open your mouth. You know the drill." I replied, "Only too well." Another asked me what kind of filling I would like - metal or amalgam - and did not even smile when I replied, "Chocolate."
There is the woman who grabbed her dentist by his private parts as he leaned over to begin working on her mouth. When he protested, the woman replied, "We're going to be very, very careful not to hurt each other, aren't we?" Another woman, when told that she needed an extraction because the tooth was too far gone to save, complained about the pain, "I prefer to have a baby than go through this." The dentist replied, "Madam, better make up your mind so that I can adjust the chair."
THE LITTLE BLUE PILLS
Because I am not allergic to anything, I take novocaine without trying to transcend dental medication. However, there was this man who needed root canal surgery and agreed to the procedure, but claimed he was allergic to the injection. The dentist suggested nitrous oxide but the man was adamantly opposed to that too, claiming an allergy. The dentist then gave him two little blue pills with a glass of water and the man took them but then asked, "You sure these will kill the pain?" The doctor replied truthfully, "No they won't. They are actually Viagra." The man was aghast. "Viagra?" he asked. "What does that have to do with my teeth?" "Nothing," the dentist replied, "but it will give you something to hang on to during the surgery."
My problem is the combination of cold weather in Canada and pain from an abscess left me with nothing to hang on to except my sanity, and that is constantly both tried and questioned by my children. More than five days after I had dental surgery, and after many extra-strength Tylenols, the pain was still intense to the point of unbearable. I realise that the term 'painless dentistry' was not just invented by an unscrupulous dentist but is also an oxymoron or contradiction like 'English cuisine' or 'peaceful Trinidad'. I took two tablets and fell asleep at about 11:15 p.m. and here I am awake and writing this column. What time is it? It is when Chinese and other people who had dental surgery really have problems. Two thirty.
Tony Deyal was last seen commenting on the poem a dentist entered in a competition. It read: "There was a young dentist named Sloan who catered to women alone. In an act of depravity, he filled the wrong cavity, and said, "My, how my business has grown." His prize? A little plaque.
