Jun 28, 2021 3 min read

My dentist retired. My friends joked, “He probably retired just off the money he made from you.” It’s true. I went through some tough times with my teeth. I spent a fortune at the dentist’s office.

I, literally and figuratively, put my money where my mouth was.

I kept the old guy busy. I kept the health insurance agency busier. I was making claims over the place. I claimed till I could claim no more.

Once, my former dentist threw me a freebie. I racked up frequent flyer miles in his chair. He said, “I can’t even turn in a claim on this procedure because they will reject it. We’ll just stick this crown back in there and I won’t charge you.”

I knew I wouldn’t find anyone else like him.

It’s weird. I went the first 35 years of my life without a single cavity, and then my mouth – like a car after the warranty expired – went all at once.

I wasn’t between dentists very long. On my way back from a quick trip to the beach, my crown popped out while I was eating a rice cracker. It was a flaky, little rice cracker! It wasn’t like I was gnawing on a hardened caramel.

Side note: Even though I wrote “hardened caramel,” I keep reading it as “hardened criminal,” as if a Werther’s Original stabbed a Hershey Bar. When candy goes bad, it goes really bad.

But I digress, like I do. I met my new dentist in a tall building by the South Hills Village mall. I sat in the chair and looked out the office window. It was a lovely view of the Target. I sat in the chair across from the bullseye. I didn’t have the view for very long. He reeled the chair back and I was staring at the bright light he was shining in my face.

I may have gotten off on the wrong foot. He asked me if I was nervous, and I said, “You know, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ did a number on your whole profession.”

Maybe I have issues with my teeth because I keep putting my foot in my mouth.

I was in and out of the chair quickly. He popped the crown back on without much fanfare. There should have been a coronation. It seemed appropriate.

I joked, “I’m glad it was one of my back teeth. My front two teeth are crowns also. I am glad one of them didn’t pop out because I don’t want to look like some hillbilly.”

He replied, “I’m from a tiny town in West Virginia.”

My foot was back in my mouth before the cement dried.

I recanted, “I said ‘hillbilly,’ I never mentioned a location.”

He said, “No. I hear it all the time. The dentist I bought this practice from told me I had to come to Pittsburgh to find enough teeth to work on.”

My new dentist and I are going to get along just fine.