The Quiet Dentist

My dentist works in half of a small brick building that looks like it has always been in that spot, trembling close to the ground while other buildings pop up around it. The waiting room has four wicker-seated chairs that could be new, or very old and scarcely used.

K-, the secretary, is also in charge of clipping the bib around patients' necks and handing them two tissues. She has a slight speech impediment and sounds as if she's chewing on her tongue when she talks. I am sure that the circa 1985 Toyota Camry wagon with the "Have you hugged your cat today?" sticker always in the parking lot is hers. However, it's possible that she came with the building and the car is the dentist's.

We found Dr. S- S- back when we had dental insurance but only one car. He was the only dentist in the Yellow Pages who was on our plan and on a bus line. Actually, he is listed after a Dr. I- S- at the same address, who I presumed was his father, perhaps dead.

Dr. S- is not a friendly man, although he can make sincere small talk for a few minutes. He doesn't smile much, which also means that he doesn't fake-smile. 1 has seen him several times and seems to like his quiet, earnest manner.

I used to wonder if Dr. S- became a dentist only because his father was one. His room is so small and so unchanging, though not quite joyless. A photograph his son took in 3rd grade of a bright yellow tree beside a large tombstone hangs on the wall. A window looks out toward the road.

The pale grey-green reclining chair, like the waiting room chairs, seems both old and new at the same time. I have only twice encountered another patient before or after my visit.

Why does anyone become a dentist? Today as I sat in the chair, squinting up at the ceiling, I wondered if the profession attracts methodical, obsessive people. A mouth, a domain with precise and controllable limits. Thirty-two subjects to be washed, dressed, fed and patted on the head, right to left and top to bottom. Do people become dentists because they imagine they will like the job, or because they ask, "How hard could it be?" Or do they become dentists because they need to, because they must bring order to something in this world and the mouth is a logical place to start?

Dr. S- has become noticeably greyer over the past seven years. He is entirely medium in height and build, with grey eyes and a smooth, medium-sized face and nose. His two sons differ widely in ages, the products of different marriages. I know this from our first visit, when he seemed to be trying to make us feel comfortable about bringing 1 there. My husband has never returned, saying Dr. S- is too rough in his handling of the tooth-scraping tools. This is true, or at least Dr. S- never asks if one is "doing all right."

Last month, I took 1 and 2 for a visit. While 1 was in the chair, I had to take 2 to the bathroom. We passed a second exam room, just as narrow, one that I had never known was there. The door was open, and I could see the white hair and white dentists' jacket of a man sitting, his back to me, in the patient's chair, slightly reclined, reading the sports section of the daily paper.

Surely it was Dr. I- S-, the father. Maybe he sits there every day, reading the newspaper for a couple hours. Maybe he sees a patient or two, or maybe not. Just before lunch, maybe he gets up and stands at the doorway of his son's exam room and asks him if he's hungry. Maybe they look out the window together and consider the options.

Super-Grouch

1: What's wrong, Mom?
Me: People keep asking me questions.

I think this is possibly the funniest thing I've ever said.

A Matter of Taste

I've been so sick, ugly sick. My body's capacity to manufacture mucus has astonished me. It has, actually, humbled me.

I started blowing my nose the Thursday before Thanksgiving and I still haven't stopped. Although I was most miserable--with fatigue and fuzzy-headedness--just a few days in, the strangest part of my illness beset me after the first nine days. For four days, I couldn't smell or taste at all. I've never had that experience before--muted senses, yes. But this was an entire loss of both functions.

Eating was joyless, even disgusting. Coffee, stripped of its flavor, is starkly a drug, chicken is dry flesh that refuses to be chewed quickly. Lettuce is even more pointless than usual.

It was unbelievable that I could tear a basil leaf right under my nose and not smell a thing, while someone sitting several feet away could easily catch the scent. For the sake of being attentive, I tried to put words to what my mouth was experiencing: a square of Hershey's chocolate felt thick, like curtain of very soft heavy cloth loosely wrapped around my tongue. I thought I could tell it was sweet. Coffee was like prickly sawdust. Granola was like biting the sound of falling dishes.

Well, I just made that one up right now. My most recent batch of granola wasn't the best to begin with anyway.

My smell and taste has been fading back in for the past two days. Oddly, as it was fading out, I didn't even realize what was happening. I remember eating Thanksgiving dinner with extended family and thinking, almost subconsiously, that it wasn't very delightful. Two days later, I wondered why the blueberries my mother served with the pancakes were so bland. At lunch, I could taste the vinegar in the souse my father waxed nostalgic over (souse? oh, never mind), but by the time we drove home to Virginia and my husband cooked supper, I had lost it all. I had a mouth was full of rice and I realized I was chewing soggy cotton batting. Then I took a bite of kim chee and my mouth ignited. That's when I knew something was wrong--I haven't experienced kim chee as a spicy food for nearly 10 years. But without taste, my naked tongue was cowed by the capsaicin.

It was a sad stretch of days, being without smell and taste. I hoped that my senses would return all at once, like a light switched on, and the glorious music would blare and I would taste apples! coffee! cheese! cranberries! green beans! like never before! But they're just creeping back and all I can do is swear to myself that I will appreciate them wholeheartedly for the rest of my life.