Cowardly Politics at the Dentist

I hate going to the dentist.

I have always hated going to the dentist.

As a kid, I brushed my teeth when my mom reminded me, which might’ve been most days, but who knows, and I skated by in youthful ignorance of how directly correlational good at-home dental practices were to easy trips to the dentist. Brush my teeth? Boo. That’s boring and I’m tired and also I want to eat candy in bed. Yeah, floss, right. I’ll definitely get on that. (Internal eye rolls abounded.) I was absolutely certain that no human walking the earth actually flossed their teeth every single day. Who would do that? Flossing was the worst. Even though I didn’t know the word for it, I knew that masochism was bad. Sure, Dr. Will, I’ll definitely floss everyday before I see you again… (blowing raspberries in my brain). 

Funny enough, I didn’t start getting cavities until I was in my 20s. I mean, I had it coming. My parents have bad teeth, both having genetics working against them, and my sister also had cavities as long as I could remember. I would’ve been pissed at me if I were her. I had terrible dental care habits and never got cavities. She brushed three times a day (maybe she even flossed - I purposely turned a blind eye to be able to keep my “no one actually flosses” belief intact). She was older than me by enough that I went to bed hours before she did. Well, it all caught up to me, Christy. We’re fair and square now. 

After a root canal in my late 20s, the message finally stuck. People truly do floss, and I needed to become one of those people unless I wanted to endure more root canals and crown placements, tooth by tooth. I had a glimpse of my future once when I found my mother in the garage after her dental appointment trying to finish crying before she came inside. It was heartbreaking. I changed my ways. I once had a 450+ day flossing streak, and I haven’t had a new cavity since 2013.

Recently, it was time for my 6-month cleaning and check up. I walked in, palms slightly sweaty, and I sat down on one of the 7 chairs available for waiting patients in a room measuring approximately 10 feet by 12 feet. There were 4 too many chairs in there, especially considering I’d never seen more than 2 people waiting at a time. As I waited, trying not to imagine the metal tools that were about to scrape my teeth and probably nick my gums and cause uncontrollable bleeding, another woman walked in cheerfully, and right off the bat, she started talking about politics. This was a couple of weeks before the election, back when I still lived in my Kamala-can-win bubble that I prayed to Hilary would not be burst.

I don’t think the newcomer completed her seating maneuver 3 overstuffed chairs away from me before she started talking about her plan to go vote early at the Downers Grove community center. I engaged, and though I was not entirely glad for this type of distraction, it was the distraction I was offered, so I took it. I told her I’d already sent in my mail-in ballot and was glad to avoid the lines. She may have heard me or may have just been thinking about what she was going to say next, because the next thing out of her mouth was not a response to me at all but a lamentation of the state of America as a nation these days and how expensive things are at the grocery store now. She completely baffled me when she said something about hoping Americans were getting smarter. She seemed to live in a different America than I do, so disgusted she seemed with the state of our country under the current administration. She lived in an America where Trump was the SMART choice, a place I didn’t think actually existed in the real world (and still don’t but apparently many people do). I opened my mouth to speak but for the life of me could not think of a thing to say that would ride the line of “I don’t want you to think I agree with you, but I also don’t want you to think about me again after this conversation is over.” I had my mouth open already, so I was committed, and after a couple of “uuhhhs,” said something to the tune of, “I hope they figure out a solution for that one soon…” and sent up a silent plea for the hygienist to call my name, anxiously awaiting my dental appointment to begin for the first time in my life.

I suppose this makes me a bit cowardly, not wanting to engage in a political discussion with a stranger in a waiting room, but I don’t know what I could’ve said. I didn’t want to argue, and changing her mind seemed unlikely in such a short time. So I kept my eyes forward, uncomfortable with my choice but sitting with it nonetheless. What if I had engaged? What if I had asked her for her point of view without fear?

When Bridget the Hygienist called my name, I extricated myself from the complicated seating as quickly as I could, not looking back for fear of encouraging further comment from my new acquaintance. The scraping and polishing in my near future felt a little more joyful and a little less intimidating as I regarded Bridget my savior with renewed optimism. Crossing the room in three steps, I allowed myself to be led down the hall to the awaiting reclined chair, mouth open and awaiting her tiny hook on a stick.

Scrape my teeth, Bridget. Be gentle, but don’t make me go back out there.