GUMLINE

(sigh)

I changed dentists several years ago and am having second thoughts about that decision. Why, you ask, has it taken several years to re-think that decision? Here's why. I NEVER HAVE TO WAIT WHEN I SEEK OUT HIS SERVICES. His office is either the most well-run office in the state or other people know something I don't. I prefer to think it's the former, but I wouldn't bet on it. At any rate, this dentist is a past neighbor of mine -- someone I've known for years and with whom I'm on a first-name basis. He's like a little old lady though -- loves to gossip about my friends from the old neighborhood and can juice up a morsel of news like no one you've ever seen -- all while my mouth is loaded with periodontal instruments and with my tongue flopping around like a bass on a hook. I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to reflect the appropriate amount of consternation at a request to "Fill me in on your love life" with only a grunt.

So I don't. I remain mute, emitting only small "ummms" to his run-on of life in the neighborhood.....who's divorcing whom, whose kids are wild and unruly, how the homeowners' association is screwing everyone on costs for repairing the tennis courts, ad infinitum. By the time he's brought me up-to-date I have retreated into a cocoon of indifference, only to be riveted back to reality by, "Your gums are receding some!" Noooooooooooooooooo! I have this oral hygiene thing down to a science, my pearly whites are healthy and now he's telling me in no uncertain terms that I'm getting O L D ! Since there's not much to be done about receding gums, did he really have to mention it? Of course not.

Maybe I DO know why his office is empty!

(sigh)