I have a so-so relationship with dentists.  For the last four years my relationship with dentists has been less so-so, but only because I haven’t had dental insurance so the closest I came to a dentist was when I skied with one at Vail for a week in 2005 and rode a chairlift with a different one at Sugarbush in 2007.  

My early childhood included an episode best described as “jumping off a couch and smashing my teeth on a coffee table” which set the stage for a lifetime of dental difficulty.  As a young boy I had a mouth full of cavities and a black front tooth that I displayed proudly in every photograph taken of me between 1983 and 1990.  I’ve always maintained that it was this tooth, or the fact that she was a closeted-lesbian, which lead my high school girlfriend to tell me that what she liked most about me was that nobody else thought I was good looking.

As a young kid I went to a dentist called Dr. Marshall.  Dr. Marshall was enigmatic and arrogant and said short sentences such as “cuspid” and “suction” while holding his hand out for the help of one of his ever-giggling assistants when he came into the room for thirty seconds at the end of every visit.  I spent so much time in Dr. Marshall’s office over a four year period that I developed a mild interest in the music of Yanni.

My dislike for Dr. Marshall at a young age was mostly based upon nose hair and coffee breath, but by age 20, was tempted to drive 3 hours to Vermont and choke him with gauze pads when I became a victim of his 12 year-old handiwork.  I was packing my bags for a spring break when I realized that the front of my face was swollen, slightly, to the point where it appeared I was a soccer ball under my upper lip.  Curiously, no amount of Bud Light or pain pills obtained from a skinny guy named Alex did anything to reduce the swelling so I found myself on the phone with a Honduran dentist who was the only man willing to work on my mouth at 7am on a Sunday so that I could get to my plane in time.  While his English was less than perfect I recall him using the words “should be in prison” when describing the mess Dr. Marshall had made.  As it turns out, when treating a dead tooth and a severe infection, the right method of treatment doesn’t involve covering it with a temporary cap, failing to inform the patient or his parents that a root canal is required, and then forgetting about it for ten years.

After I returned from my vacation I paid several visits to an endodontist, who is a dentist who other dentists complain makes too much money.  This guy used assorted intoxicants in his work so I don’t recall much from my time in his office but thousands of dollars later I had another fake front tooth that is not quite the right color and feels weird and works as a constant reminder of what I would like to do to Dr. Marshall if I ever see him doing anything but driving around in a Range Rover.

All had been quiet on the dental front until about a week ago when one of my molars split in two while I was engaged in the strenuous tooth-related task of sitting in my car and pointing at a building.  I was overcome with fear at having to pay for whatever dental nightmare was to follow and thrilled when I obtained enough care to stop the pain for a mere $90 at the hands of moderately skilled second year dental students at Tufts University.  My dentist-in-training was a guy named Isaac who had the acne of a 15 year old and the soft hands of a pipe fitter.  Isaac worked under the tutelage of a guy named Dr. Oldium who appeared to be in his 80’s and referred to Isaac as “Ethan” at least 7 times while telling him to hurry up, or coming by to redo all of Ethan’s work which was either incomplete or ineffective.

Initially, I thought I might have made a poor choice when Isaac was ready to discharge me in my pain-induced deliriousness after failing to identify the problem tooth despite my excellent description or the fact that half of my tooth was gone and I was bleeding profusely.  I continued to think I had made a poor choice when he drilled my tooth with the care most people reserve for trying to punch a hole in leather with a screwdriver.  When he was finished, Isaac informed me that despite his efforts there was a very good chance I’d need a root canal “within a year”.  Dr. Oldium for his part, told me the work they’d done might last 50 years.

I’m not sure where the truth lies. The saying would suggest somewhere in between, but I assume the saying was written before there were dentists.  My plan is to have it checked periodically because I can’t take another Dr. Marshall experience, and have come to realize that I can’t rely upon serendipitous skiing-related dental interaction to keep me safe.