How to schedule a dentist's appointment

Adulting is hard, but I've got you, baby.

I've heard them referred to as luxury bones, our teeth.

When I go to lunch with Char, my friend with falsies, she surreptitiously spits them out into her napkin to chew with her gums.

"They're hot," she complains. 

One day, I'm sitting at my writing desk, and I look down.

There is a tooth, child size. It crumbles a bit when I pick it up, likely from one of my children.

I couldn't bear to throw away the teeth I collected in my side hustle as the tooth fairy. It was always nerve-wracking to slip into my kid's room as they slept.

Then, to rummage carefully beneath their pillow for the special tooth box and deposit whatever treat I'd rustled up that night. For some reason I never thought to pre-game and have a stash of tooth fairy gifts.

Those were the days before I had a planner and before I thought much about the future. Now, I have goals and tasks: daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. I check things off with the consistent regularity that eluded me earlier in life.

Sitting on the toilet the other day, I called into the abyss,, "How did I live my life before I set goals?" 

These luxury bones require care and tending.

Daily rituals of dental hygiene, several times.

Flossing.

Swishing.

Power washing.

I try to substitute gum for brushing sometimes, get that minty fresh flavor, and trick my luxury bones into thinking they've been to the car wash, but no.

They don't buy it. 

Speaking of the car wash, I pay $45 monthly for unlimited bathes at Zips Car Wash. Inside, it's like a 90s nightclub.

I like the colored lights that strategically shine through the soap cycle getting dumped on the windshield.

I put on good rock n roll before driving through. Sometimes, I drive through twice, right in a row, just because I can.

There's a VIP lane for those who pay the monthly fee. It feels like a treat, like a fun date activity. "Let's go to the car wash!" I say excitedly. 

But I never say that about the dentist.

The joy of self-care and the dentist continually eludes me.

My new dentist is trauma-informed.

That means that they give me a menu of comfort offerings.

All I have to do is point to what I want, and it appears.

Moby on Spotify? No problem. A weighted blanket? Sure. Heated lavender eye pillows? You got it. 

I hate that I need a trauma-informed dentist.

(I actually like the paraffin hand wax soak.)

(And the minty chapstick.)

(They even hand out chocolate chip cookies when you are done.)

No, I hate not that I need it but that I've become so particular at this point in life.

When I talk to others my age, they understand what I'm talking about.

The rub of a tag.

The irritating sound of a TV I'm not watching.

My neighbor's cat coming on my porch. 

These little irritations make me want to chomp down on something.

I've ground my teeth so hard in the night that I've lost bone mass in a molar and am waiting to have it extracted.

I use a CPAP at night, and my tongue gets so frustrated it pushes out against my front teeth.

Over the years, the force of that tiny bit of muscle has pushed all of my front teeth out at an angle. It did give me a gap between my two front teeth, which I love. 

If you're wondering when I will get to the point of this essay, how to schedule a dentist's appointment, I welcome you into my world.

Even as a grown-ass adult, I will do everything I can to procrastinate scheduling time with the tooth doctor.

I will tell all kinds of stories, make excuses, and blatantly ignore or deny that the dentist is a thing. 

So, while we're heading in that direction, I'm not ready to schedule or to tell you about scheduling. 

One day, when I was 21, I was housesitting for my mom.

My best friend and I decided to saddle up her decrepit horses and take them for a ride even though neither of us was a rider.

If you've never put a saddle on a horse before, let me tell you, they're smart.

They don't particularly like having a tight belt cinched around their waist.

So if they think they can get away with it, they'll take the deepest breath as you try to buckle it on so that when they exhale, the belt is looser.

Tricksy.

So my friend and I didn't know that, of course.

We get the saddles on, and off we go.

We also don't know how to ride, so spurring the horses to a greater speed sounds like a fun idea for some reason.

For a minute or so, we fly down the chip and seal road, and it's glorious.

Then, I notice I'm leaning at a tilt, and the angle is increasing.

In slow motion, the saddle slips to the side, and after what seems like an hour, I land on the road, on my mouth.

When I raise my hand, I feel the gap.

I've broken out my front teeth. 

It takes a year of regular dental visits to fix that bad judgment call, and then two years later, I have to do it all again.

I've done my time in dental chairs. 

Now you listened about my dental trauma.

So it's fair for me to tell you how to make that appointment.

First, the timing.

It's got to be one of the first things I do in the morning.

Second, I must tell someone, usually my partner, I will do it that day.

Third, I sit at the kitchen table and look up the number.

Fuck no, I don't save that shit in my phone.

Then I press the 'Call' button when I know the office is open. I breathe through it and sometimes grit my teeth a bit.

Adulting is fucking hard, and this is one of the hardest things.

But I don't want to forsake dental care. I feel too much shame when I don't like my teeth. 

Once I've made the appointment, I will tell everyone I did it.

Yay, me! I did the thing! I have a dentist's appointment!

Yes, celebration is essential for me.

Then, I really do try to keep the appointment.

It's on my calendar, and it's been so intense to get it there that I might as well follow through. The follow-through part is the easiest. 

I don't know if it's the same for you, if you have dental trauma, or resistance to adulting, or any other hard thing that keeps you from your tooth care.

But if you do, please know you have all my compassion.

And now I'm going to put on my weighted blanket.

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