Open Wide

 There is a little background to this story. Since my years in Boston, when my commute to work started with a 5:00 bus out of Watertown, I have been in the habit of getting up at 3:30 in the morning and eating a peanut butter sandwich. This results in my getting hungry around 10:00. This schedule has persisted throughout the sixteen years since.

I have a new primary care physician here in Yulee. She prescribed a dental checkup - my last was ten years ago. I went to what she called "the McDonald's of dentistry," Aspen Dental. I got x-rayed, a cleaning, a filling and a crown over four visits The temporary crown was replaced with the permanent one a week and a half ago. The filling was done that same day, and they also tried to do a 3D scan of my mouth for a new partial plate. This is done with a high tech thing the size and shape of a Coke bottle, which is smushed around the inside and outside of the gum line. Unfortunately, the scanner was malfunctioning, so they sent me home with a promise to bring me back when it was operational.

The next part of the story is that my numbed-up self was starving when I got home at 11:30, after two and a half hours at the dentist. I grabbed a slice of leftover pizza and began glomming down. At some point my tongue touched my still-numb lower lip, and it felt funny - and not in a fun way. Some time during my feeding frenzy, I chomped my lip a good one - and not in a good way.

A week and a half later, my lip still very tender, they brought me in for scanning. I arrived early for my 9:00 appointment, which was good, because at 9:50, after an hour in the waiting room, I was in the chair, fixin' to be scanned. The technician would scan a while, take the scanner images to the dentist for approval, come back and scan some more. This went on until 10:45, when she pronounced me finished. My lip was throbbing.

I headed straight to the McDonald's of hamburger joints. I was just pulling out of the drive through when my phone rang. It was Aspen Dental. Could I please come back for some more scanning. I wanted to eat my burger on the way, for the onion breath if nothing else, but who knows what that might do to the scanner. 

Another fifteen minutes of scanning ensued, and the scan was finally deemed complete. I asked the technician whatever happened to biting down on a clay mold maker, like they did ten years ago for my first partial, and which only took five minutes instead of three hours. She said this was a much better system when it was working properly. I certainly hope so.