With the “just now” patient conversation still fresh on my mind, she and I discussed our (different) family’s Sunday night habit of popcorn and cokes. There are so many things that can break teeth when chomping away at what is at hand. I even sent an email blast earlier this year on cracked teeth, chipped teeth, split teeth, and bruised membranes. And, may I add, I have seen more of the above since this pandemic started than I have in the last 10years.
Some of you know this. I have a very cute little giggle joke I’ve told multiple times over the years when there is a chip or crack on somebody’s front tooth.
Before they can get their story out about how they broke it, I interrupt and suggest that the breakage of that tooth possibly is “what happens when you open beer bottles with your teeth”. Well, yes, just the sheer humor of that little line throws us both (except for my assistant, who’s heard it too many times) into a mild, passing paroxysm of Haha’s!
And a smile lingers.
And then fades.
Funny stuff, really.
So, lower-20’s-aged girl comes into my office recently with this little chipped front tooth. Of course, her minor debacle totally invited my overused humor about teeth and beer bottles. And, again, after I got my little joke out, in her immediate moment of revelation, she stopped, (with an observed bowed head), looked up at me with steely resolve and said,
“Yes. And I will NEVER do that again!”
Alright.
Okey. Dokey.
For all these years that I was just kind of kidding around, (because you can’t laugh and cry at the same time). I finally found someone sitting in front of me who actually did that!
Well……
Maybe I could have gone into Engineering rather than Dentistry? Or Architecture, perhaps? I think I would have even enjoyed Health Science Education? But it’s moments like these that keep me coming back!
So. Hope you enjoyed this small slice of life as much as I did writing about it. And the next time you come into my dental office with a cracked or chipped tooth, insight now will tell you what button you just pushed behind that beginning little smile showing up on my face!
Further reading
