Brace Yourself

Today, I visited an orthodontist. An orthodontist. I haven't seen one since I was sixteen, so that's about....well, a long time ago. I experienced a mild sensation of recoil watching a few teenagers get their braces adjusted, but on the whole it was less intimidating than I remembered. And the actual orthodontist was vastly different from old Dr. S---, who perpetuated untold tortures on my poor mouth.

Dr. S--- was a Big Game Hunter and his waiting room was filled with the stuffed heads of his various trophies. He had obviously been on safari a time or two, and judging by the giant moose head on the wall, the Great White North wasn't unknown to him either. Everyone in his family drove a Mercedes and he sported a wristwatch made of little nuggets of gold. Doncha wonder how he paid for all that? Hmmmmmm.

Worst of all, in the middle of the treatment area, clearly in violation of some health code somewhere, was a big, wrought-iron cage with a scarlet macaw inside. An unhappy scarlet macaw. A macaw that felt the need to shriek its displeasure periodically in a way that made the orthodontic assistants jump. Since this often happened while they were tightening my braces, the macaw wasn't the only one who was unhappy.

Why today's visit didn't give me flashbacks of my last gruesome experience with braces, I'll never know, but Dr. M--- might have been the reason. She was nice; she spoke to me instead of around me, and she didn't charge me for a consultation, which I thought was jolly decent of her.

Unfortunately, she did use the "B" word, and that made me go all crawly inside. Yes, it would be short term, yes, it would be only a partial set, but braces are braces and I don't know if I can face them again.

Certainly there are worse things than mildly crooked teeth. Being trapped in a cage in an orthodontist's office springs to mind.

I guess this is where I decide how vain I really am.