The Dentist

When I was a youngster, I feared a trip to the dentist as much as I feared being beat up by Jimmy Lyons. In fact, on appointment day, given a choice between a visit to Dr. D, short for Devil, as far as I was concerned, and a chance encounter with Jimmy L, I would have gladly chosen the latter. While Jimmy’s physique was impressive, his intellect, not so much; I could usually dissuade him from giving me a drubbing by use of some very clever negotiation techniques, and some cash. Dr. D, on the other hand, was immune to negotiation, or reasoning, or even pleading, and he had more money than God.

Just entering Dr. D’s waiting room and encountering the pungent aromas of anesthetic and antiseptic would provoke a near panic attack in me, not to mention copious flop sweat. If a dentist’s drill spooled up in the background, and it always did, the near would quickly become now. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Dr. D, unlike his modern counterparts, never kept patients waiting (but that’s another story), and before long my panic attack and flop sweat would be escorted to the torture room, I mean treatment room. The escort was always Dr. D’s wife, a truly sweet lady who always seemed apologetic for being the one to deliver the victims, I mean patients.

The treatment room was dominated by a very impressive contraption, which originated in a distant corner and traversed the entire room to terminate at the torture table, I mean dentist’s chair. It was, of course, the dastardly and dreaded dentist’s drill. A work of impressive if ancient engineering, it consisted of a huge motor mounted on the far wall, connected to a surprisingly slow turning drill by what looked like miles of little cables. I admired the thing and might have enjoyed watching the cables racing along, turning and twisting over shiny pulleys, had I not been acutely aware of its capacity to inflict pain. Dr. D’s drill was very old, as was Dr. D, having been passed down by his father, Dr. D the I, who, I believe, bought it used; the drill that is, not Dr. D the II. It certainly didn’t have any of those fancy modern attachments, like a high speed head, or a cooling water spray.

If his drill was old school, Dr. D. was archaic school: “no nonsense and no sissy stuff” in his office. Anything but drill it and fill it or pull it, as it turns out, was the nonsense. Novacaine was, to my great dismay, the sissy stuff. Fortunately my teeth were never bad enough to pull out. Unfortunately, they almost always needed the drill and fill. I would like to think that the grimace/smile that invariably appeared on Dr. D’s face when he was drilling away was concentration rather than sadistic glee, but I doubt it. I must admit, when Dr. D. passed on, at the tender age of 94, it was difficult for me to muster even a small degree of sorrow. I did have a certain empathy for Mrs. D, but knowing that her teeth were in no great shakes, I suspect that even she was somewhat relieved.

My new dentist was also a Dr. D. But this Dr. D. was the savior incarnate, as far as I was concerned. I could get novacaine for a cleaning if requested, and his drill was a state-of-the-art, high speed, water-cooled wonder. A drill and fill may not have been a procedure to be anticipated, but it was, at least, no longer to be feared. His dentist chair was very comfortable, quite unlike your typical torture table. He had pretty pictures on the ceiling, and even personal headsets that played soothing music during procedures. The new Dr. D was young and pleasant and caring, and he always wore a surgical mask when drilling; so if he was grimacing, I couldn’t tell.

I will admit, however, that even to this day: when I hear a dentist’s drill spooling up, at a dentist’s office or even in a movie or on television; there is still a twinge of the old panic attack and a drop or two of the old flop sweat.

01/08/11