Cavity Check

Speaking of old, ugly things, I had an orthodontist evaluation to see what it would take to fix my overbite.

My kids told me that getting the pictures of their braces was terrible but I thought they were talking about regular x-ray terrible. I had no idea the ortho had this bizarre tooth photo ritual involving what looks like a gigantic stainless steel pie cutter. What do you call those, like the fancy cake cutters people in the 80s used to get for wedding presents?

First, they stick these weird plastic things in your mouth and make you pull up on your lips or down in creepy smiles and frowns and then they stick an entire metal cake spatula in your, I’ll quote the hygienist “petite” mouth.

That’s the only thing of mine that has ever been called petite.

You have to close your teeth down on it and it practically cuts your mouth like The Joker's. Then they told me it doubled as a mirror and showed me my scary horror-movie-style tooth pictures.

My coworker was like “What? Adult orthodontia? What’s next? Plastic surgery?”

And then my face lit up like--I can’t think of anything bright and shiny enough to compare it to.

Yes, my friend. That sounds like a fabulous idea.