"Bite"
“I don’t mind biting,” Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed in "Wild"
I don’t know if biting is a learned or inherent behavior; I only know that in my case, this behavior stemmed from being the youngest among older cousins, mostly male. Biting was a last resort, a point of no return, when frustration against being teased finally boiled over. A good bite was guaranteed to end the tormenting; the ensuing uproar would usually cause attention, and my tormentor would be punished. I would be admonished but that would be all.
When I was about eight years old, my pony kept biting me, for no good reason. Someone told me to bite him back. So I did. I can still taste the thick winter fur on his neck. He ran away from me, but if truth be told, he never did chomp on me again. He was that horrified.
My Chihuahua snaps at people/dogs/bicycles/skateboards, but if he connects, his bite is infinitely more terrifying because he has no teeth. His bite is an experience that is ingrained in the senses forever; he strikes lightning-fast and the accompanying Cujo-like snarl lends a surreal element to his attack. He mashes whatever piece of his prey he connects with, back and forth, back and forth. This, then, must be the maneuver and the reason why the most prosperous prostitutes in Waikiki have no teeth!
However, I thought - unless I want to join them, I'd better take care of my teeth. Hence the much-dreaded, long-postponed, fearful trip to the dentist. I now know how a dog feels when it is about to go to the vet. I sat on the edge of the chair in the waiting room until a smiling angel of death beckoned me inside. I dragged my feet as if on my way to the gallows.
As I was being eased into the waterboarding position, I mentioned that the sign on the door advertised “painless” dentistry. When I reminded the dental hygienist about this fact, she laughed.
“I don’t know why they say that,” was what she responded with, as she gathered her instruments. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in “Marathon Man.” The torture was about to begin and I girded up my loins.
It started with a merciless scraping that was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I could feel it clear into my skull; I think it was reaching that deeply. Then the waterboarding commenced. I can’t stand water in my face; I live on an island but I can’t swim. If someone were really to try and waterboard me, I would offer up every secret I knew and the secrets of others, too, as many as I could think of. After the waterboarding, a powerful suction tool came into play, and that device almost took out my tongue. I have been told that I can suck a tennis ball through a garden hose, but my talent is obviously nothing compared to this new age vacuum apparatus.
“This is my favorite part,” the hygienist said.
“Yunh, yunh,” I replied. I was trying to look at my tongue in the mirror. Surely part of it was missing. Well, too bad for the secrets then. She doesn’t know what she missed.
She had an accomplice now, who was prepared to take notes.
“I’m going to poke you in your gums, now, and see if there is any gum disease,” she stated. I stared up at her, unbelieving. What the hell? Poke? Stab, prick, stick, puncture, pierce, gouge, run through, jackhammer, etc. – all these terms came to mind.
“Let me know if it hurts,” she said, and I thought I heard her accomplice snicker.
“Yunh, yunh!” And that was my response to the first violation of my gums. There were many more thrusts and parries.
Then there was the floss. I have a theory about floss. My husband has always used it and now his teeth are plummeting from his mouth like paratroopers. He has something called a bridge in his mouth now (I have never seen it - I imagine it as the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour traffic), probably in part because his electric toothbrush is foaming with bacteria. He has never replaced the head on it in fifteen years. More than once, I have observed fly fecal material on it and pointed this out. He said, no worries, that all comes off when he brushes. Plus, he leaves it uncovered near the toilet; now the toothbrush is covered with E coli, too. So maybe the floss is not to blame after all. I still have an aversion to it. Floss belongs on swimsuit bottoms.
However, the hygienist apparently does, religiously, believe in floss. I ended up with a scarlet piece of floss hanging around my neck. Battle scars. I think that floss had serrated edges, you could have cut meat with it.
In fact, she did!
They told me to come back in three months. They asked me if I wanted to make an appointment. They saw me heading toward the door; I waved them away. I had planned on going shopping. Now, with my makeup smeared with blood and tears, the only place I could go was home. I couldn't even approach the beach because I was afraid the sharks would smell the floss and the blood, and being so tempted, come up on the sand for a better look.
All in all, the visit went better than at other facilities. Really. I promised the hygienist that I would write a story about my experience and drop a copy off. I'm going to deliver it tomorrow. And run like hell! They will see me again, but in three months, idk...
Speaking of hell, I am a devout (most of the time) Catholic. I don't think I have to go to confession for a long time because of the suffering in the chair. I paid for my sins, at least for last week's sins. And if it hadn't been for the vacuum that sucked up my tongue, I would indeed have made a full confession; think of all the secrets I would have spilled!
Yunh, yunh.