6:14 a.m. - Thursday, Mar. 13, 2003
Ms Leslie renews a Dental Relationship.
I dreamed I got off my flight at the last moment and then watched as it took off with whatever friends I had still on it. I saw it rise up steep in the air and then do this giant slow motion loop-de-loop that ended with the ground. I swear.. I�m hard on my friends even in my dreams.
I have an awful confession to make. It�s so embarrassingly obscene, I wouldn�t even tell my priest� if I had a priest. Come to think of it, if I was religious, the last person in the world I would want to let in on my sins of commission and my sins of omission would be my religious leader.
This particular sin was one of omission. Having had a shiny crown put on my tooth and no other cavities, I left my dentists office four years ago and haven�t been back since. After the first year of sending reminders that it was time to come in for a cleaning, the office staff saved their postage and moved on with their lives. I always intended to come back. At first it was a money issue. Then it became a matter of priorities. I guess you could say I was focused on a different orifice. In the meantime, I took good care of my teeth otherwise. I floss every day, and brush my teeth. Even without the aid of a professional, I�ve kept �em clean.
So it was with surprise and dismay just a few days ago that I noticed a small brown spot right at the gum line of my left front tooth. Oh man� why now? I am leaving in less than a week. I�ll be gone a month, and I don�t know how wide I will be able to open my mouth once I come home. If I wait until I come back and can open wide, My tooth might be a jagged brown husk of itself. Not to mention the pain. Clearly it was time to set all my other concerns aside and go in for the incredible chewing out (�chewing� out� get it?) I had coming to me.
When I called for the appointment, the girl couldn�t locate my records from so long ago. �No worry�, she informed me, �You�ll just have to fill out the forms again and we�ll make a new record.� I thought that would be just as well, since the last time I was in to see the dentist, I was unmistakably a guy to her and her office staff.
I could have picked a new dentist, but I like this one. She�s one of only two woman dentists I�ve ever seen. I hate the other one and left her chair on my first appointment when she told me she did not offer laughing gas to her patients. I�m a laughing gas junky. I didn�t discover this until late in my life but I remember asking the first dentist to give it to me if I could get a six-pack to go. All the dental work I�ve had done in pain and misery. Who knew? This lady, Miss Melanie, D.D.S., not only does excellent work, she�s liberal with the gas.
I came a little early for my appointment, to be sure I had time to fill out whatever forms they wanted from me. As it turned out, it was only two pages so I had ample time to talk to a very young lady who was fascinated with the fish in the coffee-table aquarium next to my seat. While her mother and one sister waited for her other sister to come out of the dentist�s chair, we counted the fish and gave them names, speculated on their family associations, and discovered that they grew larger and smaller, depending on whether viewed from the top or through the sides of the aquarium.
In the meantime, I saw each and every staff member come to the desk and glance furtively at me through the sliding glass window. That�s the difference between he attention I get and the attention Noelle gets. With me, it�s always furtive. Discreet. I didn�t mind. I know I don�t look, move or sound like a genetic female. I had to decide a long time ago if those things would stop me from living as me or not. I decided not. Now I have to live with that decision. Come to think of it, so does the office staff, you know?
I was finally called to go to the special chair that I hadn�t seen in so long. I had asked for a cleaning and exam this time around, and had scheduled another appointment for the work I knew he dentist would want to do for me on Monday. While the hygienist put the little napkin around me neck and made her preparations for a cleaning, the other girls kept coming back to ask me for my social security number, birth date, address, and other information that I had just provided on my form. One or the other of them would ask a question and then disappear for a moment. Then she�d comeback and ask another question. Finally, I heard one of them say, �Well, this is it. This is the right one. It just says MR instead of MRS, or whatever, but everything else is the same.� Oh, now I get it. They DID find my records, but were having a little problem getting the sex on the record to match the gender in the chair. Welcome to my world girls.
After all that, I offered to clear up the confusion for them. Once I explained that when I had been there before I WAS a Mr, but now I�m a Ms., they seemed relieved. That I was transsexual was really secondary to their fears that they had made a mistake on a medical record. Go figure. The rest of the visit was marvelous. My teeth were really clean. For a hundred and fifty bucks, I got no more than a few scrapes and a good polishing, some new x-rays, and exam by Miss Melanie D.D.S., and a promise that she could fix me up as good as new on Monday morning. Oh� and a confirmation that my file was clearly stamped right on the front with big letters that spelled �NITROUS OXIDE�.
Life is good.
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