On Friday I had
to go for my appointment to have an impression made for a denture. I was glad
that I’d bundled up before riding up to Dundas and Bloor because it was a cold
day. In front of the clinic and leaning against the bike stand was the same unlocked bike that had been there the day before. I moved the abandoned bicycle to the road side of the stand so I could take the sweet half. The denture is covered by Ontario Works, so I had to bring along my cheque
stub so they could send the application to Social Services. I’m covered for a
denture every five years but this will be my first and hopefully my last one.
It wasn’t long before the assistant called my name, but she called a woman too
and asked us both to follow her. She led the woman into a small room to the
right at the end of the hall but asked me to sit in the bigger, open room, near
the back door. I told her that I didn’t want to be treated in that room because
the first and only time I’d been there, people were passing through like it was
Union Station as they went out the back door to get to the clinic’s lunch area.
At one point during that procedure, someone coming in through the back door
actually bumped that dentist’s assistant in her big ass and caused the
instrument she had been holding in my mouth to move forward. It didn’t hurt me
but it was definitely unacceptable. She told me that there were no other rooms
available, so I asked her to absolutely guarantee me that no one was going to
pass through the room while I was there. She said she couldn’t do that so I
told her I’d wait for the other room to be free and then I walked away. She
said she’d try to see if we could use another dentist’s room and within a
minute they had one.
When Dr. He came in I asked him
whether the denture would fly out while I was singing. He assured me that it
would not. He said it would take two months though before I actually have a
denture to fill the gap in the front of my mouth. That means that for the rest
of the university term I’ll be reading aloud in class with a speech impediment.
He warned me though that the denture would not be strong enough to use for
biting into food. I told that I wished I could afford an implant and he
confirmed that implants are as good as real teeth but that they cost $2,500.00
and they are not covered by insurance.
Before making the impression, he
placed a toothless template, probably ceramic, plate in my mouth and asked me
to lift my tongue. I lifted my tongue and it went up against the plate. He told
me that wasn’t what he wanted. As an alternative I lifted and curled my tongue
backwards and that turned out to be exactly what he meant. I wondered why he
just hadn’t said so in the first place. He (not “He” as in his name but “he” as
in the pronoun) placed a template for the lower plate in my mouth as well to
see if it was the right size. Then came the disgusting part. The assistant
handed him the upper plate again but this time it was covered with a thick
coating. It was inserted into my mouth and pressed up into my upper teeth. It
was like biting into clay that had been dug out from underneath a snowdrift. He
held it there for several minutes until it had hardened and then yanked it out.
I could feel it pulling hard on every one of my teeth like it didn’t want to
leave. Once it was out my mouth there were still foreign fragments that felt
like wax hanging around without permission in my private mouth, so I had to go
to the sink to rinse out the oral territory. Then I sat back down and they
inserted a lower plate that had been spread with the same guck that felt even
colder this time around. This time he didn’t hold it down for as long as the
other and so it felt like it was pushing itself out though it didn’t come out
so maybe the sense of motion just came from sensation of solidification.
While I was waiting Dr. He was
telling his assistant that he would be starting doing implants next month but
he was considering opening up his own office. The assistant asked a bit
desperately, “Can you take me with you?” He explained that he couldn’t because
she didn’t yet have a level two certificate. He offered to help her study for
her exams though. She was pretty sure she was required to take formal classes
before the exams but he didn’t think so.
When he took the lower plate out it
tugged back like a tight boot and I was left with more repulsive debris in my
yapper. I spent a lot of time spitting and used some mouthwash they had there
as well. They had me look in a mirror to pick what shade of yellow I wanted my
false tooth to be. I noticed bits of the white mould were sticking to my face
and beard.
As I was packing my stuff up to leave the waiting room, Dr. Amar, the guy that had pulled my tooth, wanted me to confirm that I'd asked to see another dentist. I told him that I had.I hopedhe hadn't taken it personal. I had seen Dr He before I'd seen him and when I'd seen Dr.Amar it was just because Dr. He hadn't been available that day. I'd also thought that Dr. Amar had been a bit of a dick.
On the way home I stopped at the
post office to buy a larger package to fit the present that I wanted to send to
Astrid.
The waxy blech was still stuck to my
teeth when I got home and didn’t go away until I ate something. I guess that
means I swallowed it.
I watched two episodes of Leave It
To Beaver. The first one started with the Beaver having a habit of losing his
lunch money. His father said he was going to give him one last chance and gave
him money to get a haircut, but he lost that too. Afraid to face his father, he
tried to cut his own hair but botched it, so he asked his brother to try to
even it out, but Wally made it look even worse. To help the Beaver cover up,
Wally came up with a plan that they would tell their parents that they had
joined a secret society that required as part of the initiation that they both
wear skating caps for a week. Ward and June of course knew something was fishy
and they found out what had really happened. They realized though that it had
turned out that way because their kids were afraid of them and that was why
they had been so secretive. They resolved to not be so threatening with
punishments.
The other episode was not so
interesting for the story but for the fact that it was the first appearance of
Wally’s best friend, Eddie Haskell. June Cleaver did not like Eddy from the
start and found it creepy that a thirteen-year-old boy would be so polite and
so complimentary all the time. Eddy was a real creep and very much a devil in
Wally’s ear, especially when it came to pulling pranks on the Beaver. He was
definitely a great addition to the show.
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