Dentist Torture

Today I had the pleasure to check up on my dentist to see how he was doing

But instead it was all about me.

It started with a cleaning operation. You know, the one that they tell you to have every year or so, so your teeth don't end up being all brown and yellow. Turns out that my teeth especially like that kind of hue. They absorb it from all that tea and coffee and thank me with plaque later on. But I got used to that. What I didn't get used to, or perhaps I should rather say what I forgot after being absent from the dentist for several years is the delight that comes with that experience.

I mean sure, there is the pain and uncomfortable swallowing of blood and chemicals that make you gag, but then there is another pleasure which I found out today and hadn't experienced before. It's the kind of thing that you can't prepare yourself for. But you realize that you're stuck in the middle of it when it's too late.

I realized this to be the case when I noticed that the sweet lady cleaning my teeth wouldn't stop talking about her corona vaccine. I mean she had a point: was it safe to get the second vaccine from a different manufacturer than the first one? I had heard in the news that this was something you should try to avoid and I believed her when she said that she felt some anxiety about getting that second shot. But that thought got swallowed up by her talking about how she still had time to make that decision. I found out several times that day that her appointment for the second jab would be May 28th. Enough time to stay alert for further developments regarding the recommendation from the health authorities. And she did say that she got vaccinated with AstraZeneca which troubled her a bit. But she comforted herself by agreeing with herself that many people did get that shot without having any side effects.

Anyway, I didn't feel like talking when I was stuck between that double-curved dental scaler and the vacuum pump that persistently sucked out my saliva. I couldn't even say more than a "ahum" and a "aha", but I sure as hell felt like telling her to stop telling me things that I couldn't respond to. It was at that moment that I realized that I was at her mercy. She could have talked about any topic and I didn't have a choice but to listen to her. Politics, yeah sure! Flat earth theory, you got it! My response was always going to be a flat "ahum"

But there was that one thing that gave me comfort. It felt soft and warm and they made me genuinely feel relaxed and good. Her breasts massaged my scalp ever so slightly and believe me, I would have told her that they were a bit close. But could I have done so? I tried, but I think that it might have just come out as an "ahhm" followed by an uncontrollable swallow reflex, so I think she wouldn't have understood. But then I remembered that this had happened before many years ago as a teenager when it was one of my first intimate experiences in a public space. And that seemed to have been okay as well. So I knew that I was going to be fine.

It kind of makes you realize that there aren't many instances in society when it is okay to touch a woman's breast and it not be socially awkward or be classified as a sexual assault. But then again, how could this be avoided? Accepting nurses with only small breasts? Or wearing a kind of shield for more separation? Not that that's going to look any less awkward.