My Granpa's toothbrush

The other day I went to the dentist and ended up back in another hospital waiting room. As if I hadn’t sat in enough hospital waiting rooms this year already. I was sitting there, alone, in the empty waiting room, reading the posters about the ‘signs of a stroke’ or the ‘what to do if you find yourself pregnant’.
Not an hour before I had been sitting back in the dentist’s chair, relaxing, confident to expect the usual quick check up with only the slight risk of a minor clean up. The minor clean ups usually consist of the dentist chatting away, poking at my teeth with that ridiculously pointy pen like probe while the girl, the assistant or apprentice dentist, or whoever the devil she is, moves around my gums with the mouth hoover.

The dentist’s suction device is uncomfortable at the best of times. As the dentist scrapes, the small white plastic tube moves round the mouth, doing it’s best to suck up all the saliva that suddenly gathers in your open mouth as the dentist moves about in there. It’s like one of those small hoovers you get for hoovering your keyboard, sucking up all the dust and debris that gathers in-between your keys. Similar to a Henry the hoover except a lot less friendly. Instead of a smiley, happy, red, bowler hatted face, you have the apprentice dentist grimacing at you from above, sometimes from behind a mask, worn presumably for hygiene purposes. Or maybe worn just in case you suddenly take a dislike to her suction skills and decide to spit some gathering saliva into her face.
If I was my dentist and this girl was my apprentice, I’d fire her immediately. Within moments of beginning the hoovering procedure she managed to get the suction tube stuck on my tongue at least three times, hoovering up my taste buds. At one point she almost took my head with her as she moved to withdraw the hoover nozzle from my mouth, my tongue trapped in a slim tunnel of suction.
My Dad, who has also visited the dentist twice this week, was on the phone the other night talking of his second visit which was to follow the next morning. He was also complaining about the ‘suction girl’ on his first visit, hoping it would be a different girl the next morning as on his first visit she poked the stick too far into his mouth nearly causing him to gag. If one thing’s for sure, nobody likes their own Dad’s gags.
After a quick look over my teeth, which consisted of the dentist murmuring strange numbers out, to which the apprentice presumably took notes somewhere, and prodding the occasional gum, the dentist informed me that she would like me to take a trip to the hospital. Apparently there was a wisdom tooth in there of ‘extreme concern’. After having been expecting the usual, ‘fine, on you go’ routine, I immediately went into a ridiculous case of panic.
A rogue wisdom tooth was of extreme concern! What the hell was it doing in there?! Was it pushing the other teeth around? Bullying the molars? Were all my teeth going to fall out? I hadn’t felt any pain?! So abandoning any ideas of having any free time for the rest of the day I raced to the car and headed straight for the hospital.
However, within the hour, I found myself standing in an X-ray machine, the scanning plates circling my head as I grinned into a blank screen biting down into a covered plastic mouthpiece. Considering the X-ray was all very urgent and last minute I was extremely surprised to have been taken and zapped so quickly. The NHS can be wonderful sometimes.
On my return to the dental surgery the dentist looked over my X-ray and thankfully informed me that the situation was not as grave as originally thought. The wisdom tooth in my lower right gum is growing in at a horizontal angle to rest of my gnashers and as a result I had been missing a spot in my brushing for the past six months, thus causing some slight staining, decay and risk of infection. Thankfully it was treatable and as long as my wisdom tooth stops moving and forcing it’s way into the party that is my lower teeth I’ll get away with not having it pulled from my jaw. However, the spot that I was missing in brushing is still tricky to clean and as a result, thanks to the dental hygienist that seen me on my second visit, I now have a Granpa brush.
As a child I always used to wonder what kind of teeth my Granpa had. Every time I visited the bathroom, in my Gran and Granpa’s house, I would always see his big purple toothbrush standing in the toothbrush holder and always wondered what kind of teeth would have such a brush. It was the strangest tooth brush I’d ever seen.
This purple instrument not only had large black bristles but had them mounted in a small, tight circular fashion on the brush’s head. All toothbrushes everywhere had larger, rectangular shaped clusters of white bristles. Everyone knew and obeyed that well known toothbrush buying philosophy. This toothbrush was an abomination! So why on earth did Granpa get this strange looking brush for his teeth?
A little later I realised it must have been a special kind of brush for dentures as I realised he wore false teeth. He would sometimes click the false set around his jaws as he sat and watched the horse racing on the tv. I would be quietly sitting, either watching the tv, or playing with my Star wars figures on the other couch when an odd clicking would start echoing through the room. On more than one occasion I remember it took me a while to realise from where the noise came as I frowned at various corners of the living room around me.
So, with the vision of the purple brush in mind, it was with some shock that the dental hygienist told me to buy one in order to reach the rogue wisdom tooth’s pesky hidden depths. Does this mean I am now on the road to false teeth. Teeth that click or clack whenever your horse is en route to the finish line?
The dental hygienist, and the branding, call it an ‘Interspace’ brush, which makes it sound quite exciting, perhaps a toothbrush piloted by a mini Dennis Quaid. Just looking at it feels me with fear and dread. It’s a reminder that not only am I going to have to brush with a little more care from now on but I’m also heading towards the risk of noisy dentures.
Thankfully though, my ‘Interspace’ toothbrush does not have black bristles, and it is certainly not purple.