Borat cleaned my teeth

Today, at the dentist office, I waited in the lovely waiting room with three white-haired ladies. As I fiddled with my iphone, they all three stared at me as if I was chewing my own toenails, and then eating the by-product and then was going to try to chew theirs.

I've always had the same hygienist, Amy. She is a pleasant mother of three and we always talk kids between scraping, polishing and flossing. She always asks about my life and I was sure she was going to ask if I had summer plans and for the first time EVER, I have pretty cool summer plans and I was excited to share.

Today, however, I was greeted with a "Rrrrrrr-be-ka?". I look up and see a dude, with a very thick accent who introduced himself to me as "your hygienist". Is it just me, or does lady always come to mind when you hear hygienist? Someone with pretty eyelashes and groomed eyebrows that you can look at as they work, who hums pleasant motherly songs and whose stomach doesn't make man-grumbles in your right ear. Is he a man-gienist? It really caught me off guard today. He reminded me of Borat.

I used to hate cleanings. They hurt and were usually littered with lecture. But I kind of like them now. My dentist is fabulous and I am always praised for my excellent gums and easy-to-clean teeth. "Horse teeth" as Nathan lovingly refers to them. They are large. This means that they have a lot of surface area which makes them super easy to clean. Like wiping down a windshield, I suppose. You should see when they take the "polisher" to my front windshields - they actually go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth - on ONE TOOTH! And I just smile because I can hear Amy's thoughts "man, these are a hygienists dream!"

But Borat was not like Amy. First, he spoke broken English, so (a) he talked very little, which meant no praises and (b) he said things like "I suck your mouth?" when it was time to suction. I'm not kidding. I would have laughed when this happened, but Borat had large gloved hands and any movement from me would have resulted in my dramatic hyper-gag reflex. Amy had petite hands - like a little dental elf. Oh Amy, where have you gone?

In the end, there were no praises. There IS a cracked tooth. Yes, another one. And a deep cavity. Yes, another one. But seeing how they are getting me in emergent-style tomorrow to fix it, I suppose I shouldn't tease about Borat's large man-hands, man gurgles and semi-inappropriate instructions. For all I know, he is entertaining his family at the dinner table with stories of the girl who had chicklets for front teeth.