perfectly imperfect

I hate the dentist.  I wrinkle my nose at the smell.  I avoid the mirrors because of the horrendous lighting.  I hate the dentist more than I hate a full body sunburn that inhibits sleep - and you don't mess with my eight hour sleep minimum.  But at least I get a tan out of the sunburn deal.  Long story short: I avoid the place like the plague.  I have conveniently "forgot" about appointments so many times that my mother now schedules them for me and drives me there against my will.

Since last week I have been looking with complete disdain upon our family calendar with "Alex, Dentist" in black ink on September 8th.  Since three days ago, thanks to my kind brother, I have been nursing a head cold.  And last night, I decided to take a stand against the cruel and unusual punishment of a combination dental-exam-with-a-head-cold.

I rallied the troops of Grandma and Dad with my sniffles and "sad eyes" and convinced them of the pure horror of laying in a dental chair with a stopped-up nose while trying to hold a conversation with the Doctor while his hand was holding my tongue.  One word: unsavory.  My mom looked on with a smile as I was giving a (convincing) speech over dinner.

"Fine, we will cancel your appointment and you don't have to go ever again," she said to me.  She knows that this is NOT an empty threat - the only thing worse than going to the dentist would be for all of my teeth to rot and fall out.  Which, being the rational person I am, is what I imagine would happen to people who stop going to their dental exams.

So I went.  Not kicking and screaming, but somewhat resigned to the gritty mint tooth paste and lectures about flossing.  I sat in the waiting room with my mom, watching the TV slide show of dental procedures, leafing through the National Geographics from 1998, and doing a combination of a cough and sigh that I thought sounded pathetic (which is what I was going for).

Ten minutes later, I was belly up on a dental chair, squinting at the overhead lights.  To my horror, my foot started keeping the beat of the Smooth Listening station that was being piped into the office.  Ironically, "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain, a mushy song about love that has been a Prom theme song for about every school in America, was followed by "Love Is A Battlefield"by Pat Benatar, which was my personal theme song for the whole of my junior year (boys suck).

After being scraped, shined, and rinsed, I was on my way towards freedom.  Or so I thought.  I forgot that it wouldn't be a trip to the dentist without the lectures about flossing (which I had escaped due to my diligent flossing habits) and braces.

I don't have perfect teeth.  Shocker.  And ever since I have been eleven years old, my dentist has been itching to get me wired up.  I can't blame him - I am somewhat of a perfectionist myself.  But since the first talk of braces, I have started to learn that it isn't always about perfection.  Sometimes its about accepting what you got - and owning it!  So I smiled and pretended to listen to his talk of the new versions they have and the pricing options available.  I didn't feel the least bit self conscious about my one crooked tooth as I smiled at the receptionist and grabbed a sugar-free sucker.  After all, sometimes its kind of nice to be perfectly imperfect.  Plus, I had a whole nine more months until my next dental exam.

My reward for surviving - a free molar-shaped and sugar-free sucker.