Open wide

I can remember when dentists didn’t wear gloves. They wear gloves now. Why is that? Have they gone soft or something? I mean, do they wear them for the patient’s safety, or their own? Is it perhaps to do with AIDS?

Masks, too. They wear masks now, and they didn’t use to. Is this so we won’t catch some nasty bug off them? Or – more likely – is it to stop them catching some dreadful disease off us patients?

I only mention this because I saw my dentist yesterday. A lady dentist. I’ve got a lady dentist. She is quite lovely. I don’t mind lying there, supine, in the chair and gazing into her eyes (over the top of her mask) as she gently inserts her (gloved) fingers into my mouth.

The reason I went was because I lost a veneer off one of my front teeth. I thought at first I might have swallowed it, but I don’t think I have. More likely it came off whilst I was brushing my teeth – vigorously – prior to an important meeting with a young female friend.

My lady dentist fitted me up with a ‘temporary’ replacement.

She gave me a pair of specs to put on - they weren’t really my style but I didn’t say anything -before she, and her aspirating assistant, went to work on me. Now why do they do that? They never did in the good old days of dentistry: fit you up with a pair of specs. Is it because she is afraid she might accidentally poke me in the eye with one of those stainless steel probes? And, in today’s ‘compensation culture’, get stung for a hefty sum? I don’t really think so.

Actually, I think the clue is in the ‘aspirating’: maybe, in sucking out all the saliva and debris the patient could accidentally cop an eyeful. Not as damaging as the steel probe, maybe, but still a possible claim for compensation.

Anyway, she has done a lovely job with the ‘temporary’, and once more I can face the world with a smile.

Now, the question is: is this Sydney or George speaking? Perhaps a strange metamorphosis is taking place.