It seems to be boy maintenance week. We had Haircut Monday, and
today was Staving Off Tooth Decay Thursday. Jackson's dentist always
admires how calm he is in the exam chair. I take credit, I've been
pinning him down and goading a toothbrush around his mouth every night
since he turned two. He's been flossed into submission. And terrorized
by Beastmaster Eden's Tales from the Dental Crypt.
Like many raised in the land of subsidized high-fructose corn syrup,
my childhood was full of needles and drills and Sno-Balls from the
7-11. A normal snack in my family was a bowl of buttercream frosting
spread over Saltines. Like a peasant from the Dark Ages who didn't
understand the connection between sex and pregnancy, I lacked the vital
mental connection between my romance with Bazooka Joe and having three
new cavities at the every check-up. For a long time after I moved away
from home, even after I was a grownup going to work and paying bills in
a city far, far away, I'd still wait until I went home to visit my
parents so I could go to my old childhood dentist and let him pack my
teeth with "silver" fillings. When he retired, I was so seized up by
the idea of finding a new dentist -- someone my parents hadn't
carefully chosen and weren't paying for, oh my god -- that I simply
stopped going to the dentist for like ten years.
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