Dentist Chair Theater

As much as I dislike having my teeth cleaned at the dentist's office, I have to give my hygienist some credit. She programs her procedures much like the host of an FM radio show would.

Yesterday morning, as I sat in the chair, preparing for another serious breach of my personal space, she started her show.

"Let me just go put your information in the computer and I'll be right back to tell you about King Tut."

"OK, sounds good."

I'm not sure what I just agreed to. Immediately, I thought that she was going to take the opportunity to try to sell me some new dental service that may or may not involve gold teeth and lots of gauze wrap. I'm usually edgy as it is when I'm sitting in the defenseless dental chair position, so I started practicing my affirmative and negative responses knowing that I would soon have two hands and several sharp instruments in my mouth. "Uh huh." Good, that sounded like a clear "yes". "Uh uh." That could definitely pass for "no". Alright, I was ready for her sales pitch.

She came back and started poking around in my mouth. "So, I went to the King Tut exhibit down in Ft. Lauderdale."

Oh, I see. This isn't a sales pitch at all. This is a story. She clearly thought about what to talk about while she was driving in to work today. That's kind of cool.

"They found that King Tut had four impacted wisdom teeth, but he died when he was 19. If he had lived longer, he would have had some serious pain."

I said "clearly", but it sound like "eeee-eeee". I guess it could have passed for "Tee-hee" because she forced a laugh as well. I don't know much about King Tut, but being a King of any kind would probably be tough enough. Throw chronic mouth pain into the mix, and I can only imagine the difficulties he would face.

She continued. "And, did you know that DNA showed that his father was not actually his father. His real father was his grandfather." She removed her fist from my mouth so that I could respond.

"I didn't know that. That's incredible."

I was enjoying the break from the mouth-work, so I considered saying more about it, but I didn't have anything additional to add, so I opened wide again and tilted my head over so she could violate me a second time.

Over the next twenty-minutes or so, my hygienist ran through her list of stories as if she was reading the morning paper to me. For those of you who didn't have any dental work yesterday, or if your hygienist is less informed than mine, here's a few other facts I learned while in the dentist's chair.

• Tallahassee police are tougher than other police. Once, when her daughter was walking to a party with an unopened six-pack, they jumped out of the bushes to ask for her ID.
• I should use a soft brush all the time, never a medium brush.
• South Dakota is working on a new abortion law. Someday soon, it won't matter because there will be artificial wombs and they won't need people at all.
• Sensodyne is good, but Colgate for sensitive teeth is cheaper, and works just as well.
• A man in Texas paid $1 million to have his dog cloned. The dog looks the same but could end up with a completely different personality.
• When rinsing after a wisdom tooth extraction, it's one teaspoon of salt for every cup of warm water.
• Even when they say there's new technology to avoid locking keys in a car, it's still possible to do it, so you should always give a spare key to a friend or family member.
• Floss every day, not just before you get your teeth cleaned.