My Kingdom for a Tooth

My teeth are like the rest of me--old. Sixty-five-year-old fillings are crumbling like Victorian chimneys. It adds up.

An from my childhood in the 50s, with art by Norman Rockwell

Anything at all can be a story, even a trip to the dentist. Any moment in the present has a root somewhere in the past. What’s amazing about this story is that I can laugh about it. In dentistry “smile” is a marketing term. Between you and me it’s friendship. Thank you for joining me here.

The last time I went to see Lisa, her receptionist handed me a pristine copy of Starter Dog. I’d come prepared with my author’s pen, ink pad and rubber stamp, custom-made from my dog’s pawprint. It had crossed my mind that Lisa might forget to buy my book or file the purchase under “someday.” An author gets used to such indignities, but Lisa has a keen sense of detail.

She will murmur, while inspecting a tooth that looked perfectly fine in my bathroom mirror, “There’s a bit of erosion going on.” Nothing serious, mind you. Bonding will set this right in a flash. I could choose not to bother, of course. What’s the downside? A witchy snaggletooth. She didn’t have to say it. Between intimates like me and Lisa, some truths can go unspoken.

Once I had a big job and a dental plan. Now I have a new paperback book that cost Lisa $24.99. Whatever this book has earned, I’ve just about spent on a website, a video editor, assorted webinars on how to sell books, and promotional chachkas from the aforementioned stamp pad to a T-shirt that transformed me into a walking billboard. No more but-I-love-it purchases for me! Yet when I make a date with Lisa, good intentions desert me. “Do I really need this?” cuts no ice with Lisa. Ditto “I can get it cheaper down the street” and “I think I’ll just wait for the sale.” Lisa is a woman of standards.

I am 74, with teeth as finicky and fragile as a heritage home. Fillings are crumbling like Victorian chimneys. Entire teeth require the stem-to-gudgeon renovation known as a root canal. Just when I think I can take a break from dental repair, I discover that I need a crown. My husband, also Lisa’s patient, isn’t faring any better. The other day he asked me, with the stunned expression last seen after a home improvement spree involving custom-made cabinetry for every room, “Do you realize what we’re spending on dental work?”

I don’t want to know but can’t help guessing. The masochist in me is making calculations: how many omakase dinners/designer jackets/posh hotel rooms in New York for one whole-nine-yards procedure with Lisa? As if it mattered. I can write in tights and a Starter Dog T-shirt. My extravagance is lying in Lisa’s chair with my mouth at an impossible angle while the drill screams and saliva drips down my chin.

Launching the book in my go-to outfit, with my author friend Rebecca Eckler.

I’m all for preserving what dentists like to call my “smile,” but when it comes to some chopper in the darkest cavern of my mouth, could we not let nature take its course? Lisa disagrees. Have you heard an architect rail at the destruction of a heritage landmark? The stained glass, the brick work, the mahogany finials… they don’t make 'em like that anymore. My ordinary old teeth inspire the same protective zeal in Lisa.

My Russian Jewish grandmother accepted the loss of her teeth with the same stoicism she had mustered for a lifetime of woe. The Cossack who raped her as a child, the first child stillborn and the husband erased by dementia. “Zoll zeyn,” she said. So be it. The root-cellar generation didn’t know from root canals and would shudder at the cost. Yet I remember how my grandmother would cover her mouth if we caught her without her dentures. Even in her 80s, she set great store by her looks. The missing teeth had once cracked Brazil nuts.

My grandmother before she married, probably about 20

My grandmother had no education to speak of. I doubt if she ever read Shakespeare’s unforgettable lines, from As You Like It, that sum up the losses of age: “…second childishness and mere oblivion/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But I can picture her nodding in sympathy. For her, as for Shakespeare, toothlessness was step one in the great unraveling.

I remember when dentists were wringing their hands for want of patients. The fluoride kids had grown up to be adults like me, with trouble-free teeth and small families. They’d brushed and flossed. What were dentists going to do? A business magazine put me on the case. “Dental marketing is hot,” said my editor. Chortling at the very idea, I found ample proof that big-ticket cosmetic procedures were replacing the bread-and-butter stuff. I checked out the wild frontiers of exotic dental decor (one waiting room featured a wall-size fish tank). Urban dentists were rivaling restaurateurs in their quest for the new and buzz-worthy.

I forgot all about the dental marketing story—until the day I met Lisa, who had just bought the practice from my former dentist, Brian. “Look what I found in your file,” she said. “I thought you’d like to have it.”

There was my story, with a full-page photo of Dr. Fish Tank. Brian used to follow my writing career. He figured magazine pieces were just a warmup for the thriller I had to be planning. “So how’s your best-seller coming along?” he liked to ask, smiling at his own joke.

It seemed ungracious not to take the crumpled story home, where I tossed it without a second look. But Brian’s running joke has acquired a certain urgency. Lisa has me by the short and pearlies, with no end in sight.

As if decrepit human teeth weren’t already wreaking havoc with the family budget, last year’s vet bill for the dog’s dental care came to nearly $2,000. Pets are the new frontier in dental marketing, with slogans like “Healthy smiles, happy pets.” Savvy vets, I hear, run at least one dental post a month on social media.

I thought Lisa and I could have a laugh about her future sideline in canine dentistry, but she was all business. “Everything looks good for now,” she said as I collected my free toothbrush. Please, let it be so.

The floor is open, friends. I know I can count on you to chime in. What’s costing you big-time as you age (or your pet does)? Which body part has been the biggest surprise as time goes by? Doesn’t have to be your teeth.