At the Dentist (continued from last time):

"We're all done now," Keratin said. "And I have to tell you that in all the years I've been a dental hygienist, I've never had someone sleep through a cleaning."

I yawned. "hmmmmm, yeah, that's the ThunderShirt Effect© for you (I hugged myself under the leaded x-ray apron). "But more than that," I said, "you're simply great at what you do. My mouth is super clean and I've never felt better. And I apologize if I've been hard to deal with. Let me run something by you, Keratin. Let's say that you're babysitting me and I lock my infant sister in my dad's banjo case. Let's say we pull her out on the early side and she's fine. Then I say I'm really sorry and we all go on to have a great night. Are you the kind of babysitter who would tell on me when my parents get home?"

"I'm telling the doctor that I think your x-ray is showing a cavity," she said. "And, hey, speak of the devil!"

Without saying hi to me, he walked behind my chair, directly to the laptop that displayed my x-rayed teeth. "Show me the money!" I heard him say to Keratin. Or he may have said, "Let's see what we have here."

"Right here," she pointed, "between 18 and 19."

"Yes, I see. Well, young lady, you have a cavity," said Dr. Cakehole (not his real name), as he came around to chat.

He sat down beside me and said, "Why are you wearing the x-ray..."

"It's fine," said Keratin. Just explain to her what's going on with the cavity." 

He started, "When we age, hormones change, saliva dries up, and gums recede."

"Shut it, Cakehole," I said. "Keratin has already explained to me that only young people get cavities, so I pretty much have the mouth of a six year-old, so this is all very flattering."

I peeled off the apron, jumped out of the chair, grabbed a novelty ring from the display (diamond: my birthstone) and went to the front desk to make a follow-up appointment. Driving away, I passed the old folks home that I'd been looking at when my appointment started. "Lucky them," I thought. "Many with no teeth. Practically babies."

At the Dentist (continued from last time):

"Wait though!" said Keratin. "Before I start to clean your teeth, let's get that heavy old x-ray apron off of you. I forgot you were still draped with it. Why didn't you say something?"

"Because I like it," I said.

"Don't be silly," she said, and she stood up to remove it from my torso.

"Keratin," I said, with my right hand blocking her. "If no one else in this office needs the x-ray apron right now, I'd like to wear it, please, if it's all the same to you."

"But why?" she asked.

"Okay, you've made me extremely anxious with this maybe-cavity and the x-ray apron's heaviness is having a dramatically calming effect," I said. "It's the same thing with my sister's Wheaton Terrier, Harry Potter. He's very disturbed by severe weather. But when he wears his thundershirt, he's able to collect himself."

"His thundershirt?" she asked. "Did your sister make that for the dog?" 

"Well, Keratin, you really can't make a ThunderShirt™, because the hugging feature of the design is patented," I said. "Its constant but gentle pressure has a soothing effect on Harry Potter's nervous system. Experts think that endorphins may be at work here. Keratin, you're a health care professional. Are you following me?"

"Yes."

"Can I wear the x-ray apron?"

"Yes. But only if my colleague, Cuspid (not her real name) doesn't need to take x-rays while you're here. Now can we get on with the cleaning?"

I closed my eyes, did a snuggle-in movement with my shoulders, and opened my mouth.

At The Dentist (continued from last time):

"Your saliva is probably fine," said the hygienist, Keratin (not her real name). "In any case, it's up to the doctor to decide if what I see here on the x-ray is a cavity or not. So we'll just wait and see."

She disappeared behind my reclined chair. SNAP! (her first glove). SNAP! (again). "Anyway," she said, "I'm thinking of buying a small SUV, either the Honda CRV or the Nissan Xterra." SNAP! (she's three-handed?) "Do you know anything about these two vehicles?"

"Aren't you supposed to wait until my mouth is full of dental instruments before you start probing me with questions? When vowel sounds are all I'm physically capable of making and I'm utterly inconsonant? Isn't this humiliating technique just another one of your power tools?" I asked her all of this.

Keratin sat down beside me, her shiny, pointy things tray within easy reach. She slipped her mask up over her mouth and looked at me.

"How do I know you're not sticking your tongue out at me right now, Keratin?" I asked. "Also, are dental hygienists unionized? And if so, don't you think it's high time that your guild change its professional title, which is highly degrading to the people you serve? Because when you call yourselves hygienists, you implicitly suggest that we can't go it alone on something as basic as hygiene. How about Mouth Attendant? It's way less biased. Stewardesses made this move about twenty years ago and everybody loved it."

"You're stalling," she said.

At The Dentist

As I stretched out and looked over my blue paper bib, between my parted boots and out through the picture window at the old folks home in the distance, she said, "You may have a cavity."

I spun my head around at the dental hygienist, who was looking at my x-rays that, earlier, I had tried to wriggle out of by saying that I had eaten after midnight. "That doesn't matter," she said. "I kind of ate a lot," I said. "Nope," she said.

Presently, regarding my possible cavity, I said, "Okay listen, that's impossible. I don't eat Warheads™ or Fun Dip™. Plus, I didn't know that 54 year-old girls could get cavities."

"When we age," she said, "hormones change, saliva dries up, gums recede."

"What are you? A hygiene expert?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Well, I have scads of saliva!" I said, "which will make itself apparent when I spit into this giant-tiny sink of yours, on which I see a plastic cup that you have already filled with water, which I won't even need because I make so much saliva. So that's a waste."

"We'll see."

"I can make saliva on command," I continued. "And just so you know, the command is:  Wed-ding-cake."