i thought you said france
Recently I went to the dentist for the first time in what’s known in dentistry circles as “four years”.
Because it had been so long since my last visit, I was a little concerned at what he might find. To my relief, he took one look and said there were no major problems, only a very small buildup of plaque, nothing a quick polish couldn’t rectify.
A minor detail that neither I nor the dentist had taken account of was that my lips were chalkboard dry. So when he commanded me to “open wide” and I obeyed, the side of my mouth split open like that scene in 2015 action-adventure flick San Andreas when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake tears the city of Los Angeles in two; except instead of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson looking concerned from above, circling the disaster in a helicopter, peering down on this catastrophe was a masked dental professional who, because of the sunglasses they insist you wear, was entirely oblivious to the tears that were now filling eyes.
“Have you any holidays planned?” My oppressor's first utterance since the devastation began.
“Ahhh gohhn a Fohhrens”. My mouth was full of dental instruments.
The dentist withdrew the tooth polisher and his assistant removed the vacuum that hoovers up saliva as it gathers in the darkest recesses of your mouth.
“I’m going to Florence,” I repeated.
“Lovely! My wife and I went there years ago for our honeymoon. Open wide again please Max, if you wouldn’t mind." The pain resumed and the conversation continued without my participation.
Inspired no doubt by my mention of the mountainous region of Tuscany, the assistant began to tell the dentist about a wedding her friend Mairead had recently attended in the nearby medieval town of Montepulciano. I had no problem with this, of course, except for the fact that she was making full eye contact with the dentist instead of concentrating on the extraction of fluid from Lake Massimo, which by now was ready to burst its banks like in that scene in 2004 disaster epic The Day After Tomorrow when the borough of Manhattan becomes completely subsumed by flood water.
“…and have you been before, Max?” The dentist was under the illusion I wished to reprise my role as a participant in this repartee. Again my tormentors withdrew their instruments to facilitate my response.
“A few times, yeah,” I gasped, like a victim of waterboarding.
“It’s a beautiful country, I just love their way of life,” the assistant continued, shoving the vacuum back in my mouth.
The assistant proceeded to tell the dentist, and presumably me, about her other friend Dearbhla’s ordeal at Lanzarote Airport the week prior.
Mercifully, however, my ordeal was nearly at an end. The dentist reiterated his compliments about my brushing routine and reminded me to floss more often.
He pressed the button that slowly restores you to an upright position, at which point in the procedure I expected to be handed a disposable cup of fluorescent water to gargle and spit out into a little basin called a spittoon.
Instead I was handed a single paper towel to wipe my bloodied mouth.
“Another casualty of Covid,” the dentist sighed, rolling his eyes as he removed his face mask. “Any plans for the weekend, Max?”
“I’m going to Florence.”
“Oh", he laughed, "I thought you said France!”
La dolce vita.