DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Here's the (dentist's) drill: Let the flossing begin now!

I am next.
Hannah comes out smiling and asks, "Do they look white?"
"Yeah. Did it hurt?"
"No," she answers predictably. (Why would it? She's never even had a cavity!)
"Mrs. Murphy?"
My turn. I'm up and making small talk with Jennifer Mason. She's my, what, what's her title, I wonder? (When I was a kid, everything Jennifer does, the dentist did.)
"Everything OK?" Jennifer asks.
I casually describe a little heat and cold sensitivity, but what my mind is saying over and over, like a dentist's drill gone amuck, is, "Oh my God, I haven't flossed since I last came here! Oh my God, I haven't flossed since I last came here. Oh ..."
Jennifer, one of the nicest, sweetest people alive, has no idea I am holding two conversations. The one with her ...
"Well, you know Josh was in a while ago. He's gotten so tall."
"I know, I can't believe it."
And the one with myself ...
"Oh man, what's the scraper gonna feel like?"
"What were you thinking only flossing the last five days?"
"Next time, I'm going to floss every day."
"Well too late now, stupid!"
"Would you like me to take X-rays?"
"What? Oh, oh, sure," I answer Jennifer, as I return to reality.
Memories: She sticks little squares in and out of my mouth. (My drool, like a Great Dane's, trails her hand.) I start to recall, as I always do, my childhood dentist. It makes no difference that Jennifer is a dental angel or that John Mayo is the most cheerful, skillful DDS in the profession, I still think of Dr. Agony. (I alter the name slightly so that if he's still alive, he won't find me and shove an enormous cotton wad in my mouth.)
Flashback. Me. Long, dark brown hair, dimples, sitting in a dentist's chair in an institutional green room. I am unanesthetized, under the age of 11, listening to the high-pitched squeal of a drill, whining faster, slower, faster, slower, watching bone fragments fly. Dr. Agony has three fingers in my mouth yanking my cheek a minimum of 6 feet away from my molars.
"Hey," he thinks, "I'll bet my whole fist will fit in there. And maybe a goat and a mule."
But wait, I'm with Jennifer now! The X-rays are done, and she has the High Speed Aqua Water-Spraying Thing out and a little mirror on the end of a stick.
Picture of repose: Now, I have to tell you what I look like sitting in a dentist's chair. I used to dig my nails into the armrests at Dr. Agony's. No more. My legs are always crossed casually at the ankles. And, I hold my hands gently together in my lap. It is a studied position. I believe it fools Jennifer into thinking I am relaxed, so she cannot read my mind ...
"OH crap, that hurt! Oh! Oh! What do they do when they torture people? How did John McCain stand it? Ouch! All they'd have to do is spray water on my gums and I'd cave! Is she almost done? Oh no! The backs? Nobody even sees the backs!"
She smiles and puts down the water tool. Finally, the moment I've been dreading for five days is upon me. The scraper. That needlelike tool that claws off plaque.
Two things leap to mind -- my dental life passing before my teeth. First, I recall the colonel dentist back when I was in the Army. Whenever an Airborne Ranger needed a shot of Novocain, he'd stab in the hypodermic and ask, "Does this hurt?" Then he'd push it in and out a few more times, saying "How about this? This? This?" until the man was reduced to tears.
Secondly, I remember how I once went three years without flossing OR a dentist. When I finally got scraped, it took an hour. The only consolation was the hygienist was crying as much as I was by the end.
No more time for these thoughts. The wire is scraping away the plaque I ignored for six months. I vainly attempt to have an out-of-body experience and fly along the coast of Carmel, but my gums keep bringing me back to Youngstown, until, finally, Jennifer is giving me fluoride swishing instructions. I survived, thanks to the skill of Jennifer.
This next six months, I vow, flossing will be my religion. I mean it. Really. After all, who would be stupid enough to ... oh yeah, nevermind.