T he past couple of months have been brimming with things that make me feel as if I am truly entering the world of adulthood. I have a bed that is wider than my arm span.
I regularly use the words "landlord" and "rent," not to mention "economic crisis." I can now prepare a piece of raw meat by myself (laugh if you want, but this was no easy feat for me), and I am always complaining about my left hip. Perhaps the biggest stretch of my lingering teenage-dom came in the form of a visit to a new dentist — by myself. This, too, may sound like small potatoes, but I have been to only two dentists in my entire life, and they are married ... to each other. My new dentist was no Dr. Minda, or Dr. Michael for that matter, but he seemed nice enough and didn't try to engage me in conversation while he had both of his hands in my mouth, which is always a good sign. This is just another step into adulthood, I told myself.
I was relieved, but not surprised, when my cleaning turned up no problems; I have used a toothbrush more high tech than my laptop since the age of 13 and brush my teeth several hundred times a day, at least. New Dentist said that everything looked fine, that he just needed to glance at my X-rays, and glance he did. His glance turned into a peer, which quickly became a stare, until he was full-on gawking, complete with a few of those awful, saliva rattling-ly slow intakes of breath.
"WTF!?" I articulated in a very adult way.
"Well, Miss Borkan, it appears I missed five cavities you need to get filled."
"What!? FIVE!!?"
"Well, actually you have four others, but they are too small to worry about right now. So that's nine in total."
O. M. F. G.
I did the most grownup thing I could have done right then: I burst into tears, all over my paper bib.
"How is this possible?" I hiccupped.
"Well, do you drink soda? Coffee? Do you floss after every meal?" asked a visibly uncomfortable New Dentist.
The answer to all three was an unequivocal no. Show me one person who flosses after every meal and I will give that person a lifetime supply of super-fancy floss, the good kind that is minty and delicious. The kind I have a history of using only a couple times a week. This is so embarrassing.
I left the office sniveling, with a pocketful of brand-new dental floss and a diagnosis of "genetically soft teeth." I called my parents so we could have that great teenage interaction where I blame them for things that aren't their fault and then expect them to comfort me, and I must say, they really stepped up to bat. My mom cooed some incoherent but extraordinarily comforting words at me and then put my dad on the phone.
"Honey," he said, "when it comes to your teeth, it's always a losing battle."
This coming from the man who had a root canal so botched (and a will to be manly so strong) that he broke the arm off of the dentist's chair in silent agony, I knew he was right. As much as cavities are reminiscent of stashing two-month-old Halloween candy under my pillow and then eating it in bed and not brushing my teeth afterwards — every night for a month straight — I realized that having bad teeth isn't necessarily a childish thing. How many grownups do you know whose teeth have gotten progressively more awesome with each year they have aged? What person celebrates his 60th birthday saying to himself, "Wow, my teeth really are in the best shape of my life!" No one, and that is why, even though I cried in the dentist's office and I sleep with a stuffed rabbit, I am going to continue on my journey into adulthood, stopping only to floss after every meal.
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Jessie Borkan is a junior majoring in clinical psychology. She can be reached at Jessie.Borkan@tufts.edu.
