Dentifrice

 I have spent some time in this space complaining about dental guilt. You know, even if you haven't read me expound on it, what this means. "You need to brush more/differently." "You've got a lot of tartar built up here, are you flossing?" "Did you know you have a nest of tree squirrels living in your back teeth?" Which is always infuriating, since I brush and floss religiously twice a day. Okay, maybe Crest isn't exactly a sacrament, but I do take active care of my mouth like it mattered. Conscientiously at least, if not religiously.

And I may be romanticizing the past, but I don't remember being admonished quite so regularly by our old dentist. The guy who sold his practice and roared off into the sunset to pursue a second career in extreme sports. Or something like that. And his erstwhile hygienist who was always chatty but never overbearing. Gone. Yet my family's mouth kept reporting to the old address twice a year so we could be ridiculed and embarrassed for our sub-par dental abilities. 

First and foremost: This is what I am paying you for. Or rather what my insurance is paying for. To keep our mouths clean, within reason. Which is another angle at which these new dentoids have chosen to insinuate themselves. First, while prodding and poking around in my mouth, they tsk and suggest that the best way to limit such nasty plaque buildup would be to schedule additional cleanings each year. Which sort of makes sense, but in addition to this polite suggestion there is the hike in the price of those cleanings for which my dental plan has no interest in covering. 

Somewhere in the back of my mind is this image of me as a slobbering and toothless victim of dental apathy keeps me tethered to whatever the doctor says. Except my less fearful mind knows that there is a place where I can get much of the same service for less. The idea of having a family dentist had an extreme sports sized hole punched in it after twenty-five years, and while I lay there in that chair with people in hazmat suits hovering over me in these days of COVID, I felt suddenly free to make a choice outside my rut. Patients change doctors all the time for all kinds of reasons, or so I am told. That tug on my loyalty shouldn't be the only thing keeping me there. Under that bright light, mouth full of tubes and sharp implements, it's not easy to be assertive. 

So I went home. Sat down at my computer and started the search. 

With only a trace of guilt.