Our Wacky World’s on Display at the Dentist

She can stare at me intensely through just one eye, almost fiercely, the way Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern can, a burning glare with just the one eye, the other eye mostly normal. She’s my dentist. I love her madly.

“Open,” she says. “That’s good.”

Fortunately, I have a great dentist. I see her regularly. Almost weekly. She stares down at me with that welder’s mask she wears and says soothing things.

“Open,” she says. “Wider. That’s good.”

Other than this small talk, she’s mostly business, my dentist. I lie back in the big dental-office Barcalounger, a pale-green chair with a spittoon on the side, and I look at her, then at the ceiling, then at her again.

“OK, rinse,” she says.

“Thanks,” I say, and her assistant hands me the dribble cup.

I know it’s a dribble cup because every dental office has one, a seemingly normal paper cup with a small hole punched in the side. You know how it always runs down your chin? Don’t feel bad. It’s not the Novocain. It’s the dribble cup. Happens to everybody. It’s why they give you that bib.

“OK, open,” my dentist says to me. “Wider. That’s good.”

Dentistry has come a long way in this country. In the early days, it was done by silent movie stars who tied strings to your aching tooth, then yanked the tooth in a variety of ways.

Sometimes the silent movie star would tie the string around his waist and dash out of the room, presumably to collect your insurance payment.

Other times, the silent movie star would tie your tooth to a piano, then push the piano from the window, from which both the piano and you would go flying.

Today, dentists are highly trained specialists who rely on sophisticated tools, Novocain and a lot of daytime TV to numb you.

“OK, you’re going to feel a little pinch,” my dentist says, which right away gets my attention. To me, a little pinch is a good thing. Except she’s talking about a needle in my jaw.

“You OK?” she asks after giving me the Novocain.

“Never better,” I say with half my tongue.

For a while, we have a little problem with my tongue. The problem is that it keeps getting in the way. Half the tongue is numb, while the other half is dancing around with pleasure, like a circus monkey after one too many martinis.

“Relax your tongue,” my dentist keeps saying.

I try to move my tongue back. No luck. I try to move it to the side. No luck. Like a Roger Clemens fastball, I don’t know where it’s going.

“Sorry,” I slurp.

“That’s OK,” the dentist says, though I sense she doesn’t really mean it.

“I have the same problem with my tongue,” the dental assistant assures me, which makes me feel better.

As they work on my molars, Bob Barker is up on the wall-mounted TV giving away cars and great vacations, bar stools and living room sets, all the things we yearn for.

“Carol, what would you say that pair of handsome chairs is worth?” Bob asks Carol from San Diego.

“I would say $1,200,” Carol says.

“Jeffrey, how about you?” Bob says.

And down the line they go, each contestant trying to price the item correctly.

“You OK?” my dentist says, noticing my eyes starting to tear a little.

I nod that I’m OK.

“The actual price of the living room set,” Bob says, then pauses. “$1,499.”

It’s a happy moment for Carol, maybe the happiest moment of her life. “The Price Is Right” anthem begins to play, and her hands go high in the air as Bob welcomes her on stage. In the dentist chair, I try not to flinch.

“You OK?” the dentist asks again.

I nod.

Some people dread dental drills. I dread Bob Barker. I admire the longevity of his show. I admire, as does everyone, his skilled team of models.

But there is not enough Novocain or happy gas in the world that would make watching this show painless to me. It’s not Bob’s fault. I’m sure it’s just me.

“We’ll be right back,” Bob says on the TV.

“I’ll be right back,” my dentist says.

As I wait, ads come on TV for laundry detergent and the afternoon news. I doze for a few minutes--a Barcalounger snooze--then wake up to another show.

On TV, a large bald man is hosting a cooking show. His name is Ainsley Harriott, and he seems to know his stuff.

From what I can tell, he’s making omelets or crepes or something in a pan.

I think about what a strange and surprising world we live in. Dennis Miller gets a gig as an expert on “Monday Night Football,” while bald guys as big as linebackers are making crepes. It’s like a world Groucho Marx would invent, except it’s the real world.

“Ooooooo, crepes,” the dental assistant says, sitting down next to me on the little stool.

“I make crepes,” she tells me.

And she proceeds to work on my tooth and tell me all about crepes, how she makes them for her husband and her son.

“They’re really very easy,” she says.

I nod as if I love crepes too, when in fact the only way I would eat crepes would be if they filled one with a 12-ounce porterhouse and a baked potato. Then I would eat crepes. I would fill my plate with them.

“You should try crepes,” the dental assistant says.

And I nod.

I love my dental assistant. She’s Romanian but sounds sort of French to my American ear. Like Nadia Comaneci. She’s friendly and smart and explains things well. When she speaks of crepes, she knows what she’s talking about.

“I fill them with all sorts of good things,” she says, which is a nice thing to hear while someone is working on your teeth.

On TV, they’re promoting the late-afternoon news. In one of the day’s biggest stories, a horse fell upside down into a trench. It took several hours before they somehow got it out.

“You OK?” the dental assistant asks.

“Never better,” I say.

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is [email protected].