Meat Catchers

I have lovely straight teeth.  Otherwise they can go to hell.  I have weak enamel because a fever in my infancy permanently damaged it.  I have deep grooves in my teeth, trapping bacteria and delicious morsels of food as surely as does a Twit's beard*.  I have tight contacts between most of my teeth.  I have bruxism.  I get a cavity every two to three years.  I have so many cavities, I've even tried having them filled sans freezing.  I awake from nightmares believing my teeth have fallen out, desperately checking for each one with the tip of my tongue.  If I find a magical bit of hard something in my food, I assume it's either a filling making its grand escape, or a broken piece of tooth doing a runner.  Some people have daddy issues.  I have tooth issues. 

I booked a dental appointment a few weeks ago and figured I'd better start flossing.  I hate flossing.  I have giant hands and a small mouth and in order to see what I'm doing, have to put my face approximately six inches from the mirror.

But I did it.  I flossed for the two weeks leading up to my appointment, which was today, and Lord help me, Ima keep doing it.  This isn't going to be like my new year's resolution, the one where I resolved to brush my teeth more gently. I stuck to that so well I'd forgotten all about it until the hygienist asked me if I was a scrubber.

I should say so, yes.

Sigh.  Deep, deep sigh.  It seems that my scrubbing was, in fact, to no avail without the flossing.  You see, kids, two weeks of flossing directly ahead of your dentist appointment cannot prevent cavities, even if you brush twice a day and usually use toothpaste*.

And a cavity is what I have.

Not just any cavity.  I have the boldest, most daring cavity since the one my last dentist (retired, god rest his damned ass in Victoria where it is probably not snowing) described as "bombed out".  Actually, this is a fascinating story.  I will share it with you.

So one year I went to the dentist and he found a wee little cavity on the side of my tooth.  "No problem," says he, "it's wee.  We'll drill in a bit so it's big enough to fill and that will be that."  "Okay," says I, "I'm an expert at cavities. Let's do it today!"

"Oh, look," says he, "There's one on the other side of your mouth as well.  Let's get it, too!"  "I'm game!" says I.

So he freezes me up.  Top left of the mouth, bottom right.  I'm chill.  My Mum used to work in this dental office.  I grew up here.  I have nothing to worry about.

Except, I wasn't due for X-rays this visit.  There was no reason to expect my imperturbable dentist to say, in a perturbed manner, "It's bombed out."

Me:  "Ish wha?"

Oh yes.  The tiny little divots on both molars, one on the top left, one on the bottom right, were mere portals to the empty insides of my teeth.  Perhaps an artist's rendering will help emphasise the situation I was in.

I HAD THIS ON BOTH SIDES OF MY MOUTH!!!!  OPPOSITE SIDES!!!!
THERE WAS NOWHERE TO CHEW!!!!

That was brutally painful.  Which is why I am worried about today's little cavity.  At least there is only one cavity.  But.

It is located in my Meat Catcher.

My Meat Catcher is a gap between two teeth.  Well, less a gap than a cavern. These two teeth meet very closely at the top, then there is a hollow roughly the size of my ego where food (fibrous food, as my dentist described it when I told him I called it "Meat Catcher") likes to hang out.  This food is usually meat and I am constantly flossing there and it is called my Meat Catcher and I am very concerned about this situation.

You see, they have booked my filling in May.  It is March.  And if that last sucker bombed out two entire molars in between X-rays, well, let's just say that a cavity investing in my Meat Catcher has got himself some prime real estate.  Prime.

*If you don't know Roald Dahl's The Twits, FOR SHAME!

*This is a joke.  Always use toothpaste.  Jeez.