If there were a mental state that defined modern life and all its constituent anxieties, it’s probably wanting to be doing something else. I want to be doing something else, but am prevented by two other exigencies of modern life: dental care and scheduling. I am in the dentist’s waiting room, reading an issue of Home and Garden from three months ago and wondering exactly what wainscoting is. I should be using this time productively, multitasking with contemporary bravado, getting a start on the next task before the current one is done. But the notion of my imminent appointment closes around me like a vise so that all my thoughts stay here. I don’t often find myself constricted in this way.
But now I am in the dentist’s chair, and I will pay unfailing attention to whatever he says. My dentist – a friendly, odd, almost astonishingly nondescript man – has all the power here. And while the terms of our relationship render me mute, they require him to fill up the dead space with words and one-sided conversation, distracting me and hopefully buffering the effect of whatever tools are currently in my mouth. I am rapt, a captive audience, petrified of doing anything that might make him unhappy to be thrusting stimulating needles and picks into my gums. Perhaps someone has the temerity to try and check their iPhone while in the dentist’s chair, but that someone is not I.
He begins the initial foray into my mouth, metal prongs exploring in search of signs that I did not listen to him last time. He begins to talk. Some things he says require responses, which is problematic, as making anything more than guttural sounds puts me in considerable danger. Occasionally, he removes his devices long enough for me to choke out a few articulated words, and then resumes once he has gained enough information to determine that I am paying attention.
The dentist’s chair is one of those places where time genuinely stops instead of just threatening to. It is worst when his monologue includes inaccurate information I want desperately to correct, but cannot for fear of intra-mouth lacerations. He goes on and on, musing about what the title of that movie is, the one with Julianne Moore about the lesbian couple with that other woman, the one with the short hair who was in that movie about the thieves with John Cusack, what’s her name, Alice something maybe (ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING), it’s definitely Alice something, Alice Betting, that’s it (ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING). It’s like watching a mosquito sting you in slow motion while your hands are tied behind your back.
Eventually, he shifts to other topics, telling me about his sons, his wife, the music he listened to on the radio today. There’s something cathartic about this one-way flow of information. The words wash over me and through me, and I have no choice but to let all of them go. None of them can mean anything to me because I can’t slow down the flow. It’s an exercise in passivity and acceptance that I would never force myself to undergo were there not a socially mandated need for me to lay on a faux-leather chair under a bright light while a stranger free-associates at me for half an hour.
I’ve learned so much though, from these appointments, from all our times together. Right now, while scraping my teeth with a miniature rake just because it feels really good, he tells me that as an average student, he never received any special attention in high school, but worked very hard in dental school in order to take advantage of the opportunities there. He is proud of that. While checking my molars for cavities, he ponders what would happen if a transgendered person applied to an all-girls college, or if a female student became a male student halfway through their enrollment. An interesting, if slightly atypical question, so I give my response grunt all the nuance I can manage (uggghhuuuunnahh). I learn about my dentist’s life, and his view of the world. I learn what he values as entertaining and what he finds dreary, what his daily hopes and disappointments are, and wonder what it means that I am the one hearing them now.
After using a small garden hose to clean my gums, my dentist shows me a pyramid of success and explains each of the constituent building blocks. Curiously, it is not to motivate me to floss, as I had expected, but simply because he finds it inspirational. He follows with the expected flossing admonition, though by means of a very unexpected analogy: apparently, gums need to be stimulated like they’re getting a massage, but not – and here’s the important part – like they’re watching a dirty movie. I did not realize I could stimulate my gums like that. I give my polite grunt (uunnh) like that’s a normal thing to say.
I don’t even want to contemplate the Freudian view of this relationship. I can’t imagine what additional illicit meanings the therapist-patient relationship takes on when it involves actual drills and pieces of sandpaper run back and forth between my teeth. This is just a necessary part of modern life with no subtext whatsoever, I tell myself.
Do I know my dentist now? I know his daydreams, which are underrated in terms of getting the measure of a man; I have no doubt that eavesdropping on my idle thoughts would teach you as much about me as reading this article right now. I have some inkling of the way my dentist connects concepts together, and what kinds of things he wonders about when he’s not wondering about anything else. I know what he muses on to pass the time, what minor enigmas and questions occupy his casual, interstitial thoughts.
This is the kind of conversation I imagine him having around the dinner table with his wife and his children, hopefully with more contribution from them. These are the things you worry about when you don’t have anything to worry about, what you confront when there are no major obstacles facing you. These are the kinds of things on which you build a steady relationship with another person, the kind of minutia that constitute the mortar of the quotidian.
I imagine my dentist trying to remember Annette Bening’s name while putting the dishes in the dishwasher, then settling down on the couch with his wife to watch a movie. I imagine his entire life consisting of these conversations, because I have nothing else to go on. He must have other concerns and worries, goals and desires that matter to him that he doesn’t share with me. There must be a private man beyond the one that talks to me charitably while his hands are in my mouth. But I can’t imagine who that man is. I imagine my dentist will always be there, exactly the same; I imagine that he will never die.
Then I am out of the chair and free again, after the inevitable postgame lecture tinged with varying shades of dental disappointment. My mouth feels sore and clean, and I find myself wondering, what would happen if a transgender person applied to an all-women’s college? And what was the name of that movie with Annette Bening and John Cusack, the one about the thieves with the woman who’s on that show about musicals now? The Greatest? The Gifted? (THE GRIFTERS THE GRIFTERS) My dentist is already investigating somebody else’s gingivitis, but his thoughts have become my own, or his way of thinking them at least. In my mouth, under my skin, and in my head.
But now I am in the dentist’s chair, and I will pay unfailing attention to whatever he says. My dentist – a friendly, odd, almost astonishingly nondescript man – has all the power here. And while the terms of our relationship render me mute, they require him to fill up the dead space with words and one-sided conversation, distracting me and hopefully buffering the effect of whatever tools are currently in my mouth. I am rapt, a captive audience, petrified of doing anything that might make him unhappy to be thrusting stimulating needles and picks into my gums. Perhaps someone has the temerity to try and check their iPhone while in the dentist’s chair, but that someone is not I.
He begins the initial foray into my mouth, metal prongs exploring in search of signs that I did not listen to him last time. He begins to talk. Some things he says require responses, which is problematic, as making anything more than guttural sounds puts me in considerable danger. Occasionally, he removes his devices long enough for me to choke out a few articulated words, and then resumes once he has gained enough information to determine that I am paying attention.
The dentist’s chair is one of those places where time genuinely stops instead of just threatening to. It is worst when his monologue includes inaccurate information I want desperately to correct, but cannot for fear of intra-mouth lacerations. He goes on and on, musing about what the title of that movie is, the one with Julianne Moore about the lesbian couple with that other woman, the one with the short hair who was in that movie about the thieves with John Cusack, what’s her name, Alice something maybe (ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING), it’s definitely Alice something, Alice Betting, that’s it (ANNETTE BENING ANNETTE BENING). It’s like watching a mosquito sting you in slow motion while your hands are tied behind your back.
Eventually, he shifts to other topics, telling me about his sons, his wife, the music he listened to on the radio today. There’s something cathartic about this one-way flow of information. The words wash over me and through me, and I have no choice but to let all of them go. None of them can mean anything to me because I can’t slow down the flow. It’s an exercise in passivity and acceptance that I would never force myself to undergo were there not a socially mandated need for me to lay on a faux-leather chair under a bright light while a stranger free-associates at me for half an hour.
I’ve learned so much though, from these appointments, from all our times together. Right now, while scraping my teeth with a miniature rake just because it feels really good, he tells me that as an average student, he never received any special attention in high school, but worked very hard in dental school in order to take advantage of the opportunities there. He is proud of that. While checking my molars for cavities, he ponders what would happen if a transgendered person applied to an all-girls college, or if a female student became a male student halfway through their enrollment. An interesting, if slightly atypical question, so I give my response grunt all the nuance I can manage (uggghhuuuunnahh). I learn about my dentist’s life, and his view of the world. I learn what he values as entertaining and what he finds dreary, what his daily hopes and disappointments are, and wonder what it means that I am the one hearing them now.
After using a small garden hose to clean my gums, my dentist shows me a pyramid of success and explains each of the constituent building blocks. Curiously, it is not to motivate me to floss, as I had expected, but simply because he finds it inspirational. He follows with the expected flossing admonition, though by means of a very unexpected analogy: apparently, gums need to be stimulated like they’re getting a massage, but not – and here’s the important part – like they’re watching a dirty movie. I did not realize I could stimulate my gums like that. I give my polite grunt (uunnh) like that’s a normal thing to say.
I don’t even want to contemplate the Freudian view of this relationship. I can’t imagine what additional illicit meanings the therapist-patient relationship takes on when it involves actual drills and pieces of sandpaper run back and forth between my teeth. This is just a necessary part of modern life with no subtext whatsoever, I tell myself.
Do I know my dentist now? I know his daydreams, which are underrated in terms of getting the measure of a man; I have no doubt that eavesdropping on my idle thoughts would teach you as much about me as reading this article right now. I have some inkling of the way my dentist connects concepts together, and what kinds of things he wonders about when he’s not wondering about anything else. I know what he muses on to pass the time, what minor enigmas and questions occupy his casual, interstitial thoughts.
This is the kind of conversation I imagine him having around the dinner table with his wife and his children, hopefully with more contribution from them. These are the things you worry about when you don’t have anything to worry about, what you confront when there are no major obstacles facing you. These are the kinds of things on which you build a steady relationship with another person, the kind of minutia that constitute the mortar of the quotidian.
I imagine my dentist trying to remember Annette Bening’s name while putting the dishes in the dishwasher, then settling down on the couch with his wife to watch a movie. I imagine his entire life consisting of these conversations, because I have nothing else to go on. He must have other concerns and worries, goals and desires that matter to him that he doesn’t share with me. There must be a private man beyond the one that talks to me charitably while his hands are in my mouth. But I can’t imagine who that man is. I imagine my dentist will always be there, exactly the same; I imagine that he will never die.
Then I am out of the chair and free again, after the inevitable postgame lecture tinged with varying shades of dental disappointment. My mouth feels sore and clean, and I find myself wondering, what would happen if a transgender person applied to an all-women’s college? And what was the name of that movie with Annette Bening and John Cusack, the one about the thieves with the woman who’s on that show about musicals now? The Greatest? The Gifted? (THE GRIFTERS THE GRIFTERS) My dentist is already investigating somebody else’s gingivitis, but his thoughts have become my own, or his way of thinking them at least. In my mouth, under my skin, and in my head.
