I woke up this morning at 9:47. I had an ortho appt. in town at 10:15. I pretty much scrambled around for a couple mintues before bursting outside and into the van. It sputtered and coughed on the way to the appt. It stalled twice. As we parked, I could not help but feel slightly distressed. I checked my teeth for anything that might make the orthodontist want to reach for something that would be shiny and sharp.
I opened the doors to the building, and stepped inside.
To my left was the door to the orthodontist.
I opened the door, and stepped inside.
As I sat down, I saw behind the counter my orthodontist, his assistant, and the secretary. The ortho-man looked up at me kind of nervously and tried to smile. Something didn't feel right... I looked around for any sort of booby trap or tom foolery but it seemed I was safe. For now.
As I followed his assistant that I had never seen before back to the room, I could feel something following me. I glanced back but saw only shiny floors and white walls. She told me to take a seat. I gave the chair a look and flopped into it. She grabbed something extremely shiny and tried putting it in my mouth. I tried to make my mouth impenetrable, but evil prevailed. She started taking of the bands that held my wire in place. One. By. One.
As I started to get up she told me to sit back down. For it had only just begun. She grabbed a pair of pliers. I felt my stomach growl. I was hungry and nervous, but I kept calm. As she pulled my wires out from my braces, I could see that she was obviously new. I had never seen her before, and she looked very shifty. She told me I could brush the stuff out from underneath my wire now.
I stood up and grabbed those automatic toothbrushes. As I wettened it with water, the assistant stood back and leaned against the counter waiting for me to finish. I collected myself and started brushing. Three minutes went by. I calmy disposed of the brush and sat back down. The orthodontist walked in.
The next fifteen minutes was full of, "Please bite down"s and, "Try not to squirm"s. As he played Beethoven's Fifth on my teeth I noticed his fumbling and stressed muttering. Something was not quite right.
Finally, he layed his instruments down and cracked his fingers. I looked up at him with concern. He glanced at me but looked away.
"Rowan," he told me, "Rowan, to properly make room for all of your teeth you will need to have your front left bottom incisor removed."
I seemed to cry as everything went black and spun wildly out of control.
Of course everything in that story was exaggerated. I did have a hard morning, the orth-man did fumble many times, and, yeah, I am having my incisor removed. I won't be able to give anyone a full smile anymore. I will only be able to give them a 31/32 smile. I cannot escape for there is no escape.
