A LIKELY STORY: SPIT, BLEED AND RINSE: JUST A DAY AT THE DENTIST

I didn't know there were so many pointy things in a dentist's office, let alone that they used them to scrape your gums.

"Mr. Moyers?"

I looked up from the amusing "Laughter: The Best Medicine" anecdotes I was reading from a 1954 issue of Readers Digest. "The doctor will see you."

Swallowing hard, I stood up and followed the lady. I was nervous and understandably so. After all, the last time I had seen a dentist was six years before when I saw one on television talking about how people don't see the dentist enough.

It was four years before then (totalling 10 long years) since I had actually graced a dentist chair. I wouldn't be going now except I was on the fourth day of a painful toothache.

Ten seconds after I sat in the chair I knew this was a mistake.

"Come here, Linda," the dentist said to my wide-open mouth. "You have got to see THIS." Another lady in a white coat, who could have been his wife or a lady who cleaned the place up for all I knew, walked over and looked in my mouth.

"Oh my gosh," Linda said, her brow furrowing. "That is something."

I couldn't even ask what they were talking about since the spit sucker was in my mouth.

After X-rays and a long 30 minutes of the dentist poking my teeth and tender gums with that metal toothpick, it turned out the toothache was the least of my worries. The toothache (they call it a cavity in dental circles; you learn something new every day) only required a filling, which, after a $40 first-time patient fee, cost me a hefty $100.

But things were going to get worse.

"Mmmmm .... plaque," the dentist told me through his surgical mask, which I assume he wore for a severe case of chronic bad breathe. Why else would a DENTIST wear one of those things?

"They're going to give me a plaque?" I thought. For what? Best Neglecter of Teeth? Least Outstanding Performance in a Daily Ritual? Worst Supporter of Oral Hygiene?

"Your teeth have a lot of plaque build-up and it's destroying your teeth. You've been building plaque for a long time."

Building plaque? That sounded so intentional. Like a friend would call me on the phone, "Hey, Scott, wanna go get a beer?"

"No," I'd say. "I can't, I'm working."

"What are you doing?"

"Building plaque."

"You're going to have to have them cleaned," the dentist said, which meant only one thing to me -- more money.

Two weeks later, I showed up ready for the cleaning. I was less nervous this time. How bad could a cleaning be?

If only I knew.

This time it wasn't my dentist who would be working on me, it would be Linda, the lady in the white coat. I hoped she was some sort of professional and not the cleaning lady, though I could see this falling into her job description: "You're going to clean the windows, the bathrooms, the floors and all the teeth that come in here."

She began by taking a pointy thingy (her words, not mine) and sticking it into my gums until they bled. Apparently, gums should be able to withstand a good poking with a sharp object, because the bleeding, she said, was a bad sign. She said she may even have to clean them twice.

Before going in, I had wondered what a teeth-cleaning entailed. Was it simply getting a wash cloth and a little Windex and a wipe-down with a squeegee? Do they worry about streaking? Are Brillo pads involved?

I found out it is simply scraping your teeth with a vibrating nail that squirts water out of it. That's it. You sit, she scrapes. And this teeth cleaning is not a short process. It takes about an hour to get all that plaque off your teeth (or mine anyway). And it hurts.

But I guess all the money and pain was worth it. Today a co-worker told me my teeth were glistening white.

Both of them.

Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.