Last week, around 6:30 pm, I walked into my first Chicago dentist’s office after work. I was cold, tired, and hungry wishing I was well, anywhere but the dentist. I took my big, puffy coat off and was called back by the dental tech. She was a beautiful, lithe, blonde, impossibly sweet without any airs of snobbery. In girl world, she absolutely could’ve had that air of I know I’m impossibly pretty therefore I’m going to talk to you like you’re a small, learning challenged child but instead she was like Kimmy from My Best Friend’s Wedding: sweet, beautiful and young. I wanted to hate her just like Julianne wants to hate Kimmy but it is in fact completely impossible to do so.
In her care, I began to melt from the wicked witch of the Midwest to a much softer version of myself. I learned she is from Texas, married out of college and moved with her husband here. She rides her bike to work (are you effing kidding me? I wouldn’t even walk more than a few blocks to a train or bus), and so far doesn’t really mind the cold. I thought to myself, I bet she looks impossibly chic in a million layers while I look like the Bob’s Big Boy in sleeping bag (thinking I’m all cute with a big cheesy grin, but instead I’m a size husky in a goose down wrapping).
She brought me back to the chicest dental space I’d ever seen complete with sexy hotel elevator music loud enough to drown out the sounds of sirens and homeless people outside. You know the kind of music I’m talking about, right? There are no words and it is driven by a clubby beat. I typically call it Single Guy Trying Too Hard Music. I imagine a single guy trying to increase his sex appeal by putting it on after bringing a date back to his place in hopes that the music plus the alcohol he is serving puts his date into some kind of trance. That somehow the music will hypnotize her into seeing him as a Hemsworth brother versus his Danny Devito reality. After flushing this out, I think I’d re-name this music genre to “No Really, I’m a Hemsworth Brother”. I can just see hotel designers doing a walk through with their clients saying in an exotic accent, “When you enter the lobby your senses will be reinvigorated with the scents of Balinese sandalwood infused with mandarin orange as you walk to the sexy music of “No Really, I’m a Hemsworth Brother.”
So here I am in my bag lady coat, Target fake Uggs, with my rats nest windblown hair, when Sweet Tea asks me if I’d like some chap stick for my chapped lips. If I thought I was flying under the radar in this far too sexy office, now I had just been announced over the school speaker that I peed my pants. Um, sure that’d be nice, I responded. She handed me a free tube of Chap Stick and I about lost my mind. Hence, why this entire paragraph is devoted to the sexy dentist’s Chap Stick. I learned from my new bestie that this stuff is ordered special from Maui and smells like tropical, fucking, paradise in a tube. It’s like the taste of the first lava flow you get fresh off the plane. Not the tenth lava flow when you feel yourself start to bloat on the sugar and have a stomach ache. It’s the first tropical frozen drink you’ve been dreaming about for months. God bless this dentist.
Next, I was escorted to the skull scanner. I stood in this orbital contraption and rested my chin on the chin rest. Instead of the scary puff of air into my eyeball like I’m used to (I hate that glaucoma test) this beast rotated around my head and instantly brought up pictures of my skull and teeth on the screen. Compared to how I’ve imagined my skull to look like, the image of my skull looked like a small deer head. I thought to myself, has my ego inflated my imagined size of my own skull? The reality was if my skull were classified along other species at the Natural History museum, I would right next to a spider monkey. Note to self: Google what an abnormally small human skull looks like when I get home.
After my 5th element skull scanner, I was escorted to different dental chair station where waif blonde number two emerged. She was nice but in that overly intelligent I’m a city girl so I’m skeptical of everyone kind of way. I wouldn’t entrust my unborn children with her like I would Miss Texas, but she was good at what she did. My typical interaction with hygienists consists of being held hostage to their lectures about my plaque buildup. Yes, I’m a bad person. Yes, I have plaque, that’s why I’m here. Do you wanna hit me? Maybe you should go ahead and smack me across the face and get it over with. I’m starting to feel I deserve the beating. If they take the instrument out of my mouth long enough, I have one defensive line I must get in. Every. Single. Time. It comes from the angriest, darkest part of my soul. I say, yea, my mom told me genetically I’m prone to plaque. As if I can pull one over on the hygienist that I never EVER floss. I always get the, you are so full of crap your eyes are brown look in response but it just makes me feel good to say my line. Back to my Icelandic princess of a hygienist. She had a tiny automatic plaque picker (I’m sure this is the name of the tool taught in dental school) and thankfully a soft touch. My gums did not bleed like a scene out of The Purge. I felt the most relaxed I’ve ever felt in the dental chair. I listened to the trance music and wondered what the dentist could possibly look like? I decided he either is Thor or he’s a small insecure fellow who only hires Wheel of Fortune, letter turner, models to do his prep.
After a short wait, in strode the dentist, and he was neither of my two imaginary guesses. If the Brawny paper towel lumber jack were a red head pretending to be dentist, you’d have my dentist. He shook my hand with his 2 lb burger patty palm and got down to business. I bet he came into this world the size of two year old and his parents are Wildlings. He’s just a really big dude, and an incredibly nice and professional dude. He reviewed my skull photos, gave me a mini lesson on tooth root length and left. He delivered dental news the exact way I like it, short, sweet, and to the point.
I believe I left this place a changed person in so much as I felt the need to tell the story to whoever would listen. To the guy on the train: Dude, you’ll never believe this dental experience I had on Wednesday night; to the girl in the supermarket line: Honey, put down that Carmex, you’ve never lived until you’ve tried THIS Chap Stick. Certain experiences change you. I’d been used to being treated like a DMV client at the dentist for so long, I didn’t think there could be any other way.