Love in a time of Dentistry

I’ve narrowed it down - the mood swings, the spotty teenage visage, the chocolate cravings – I’m P.M.Sing like a mad cow.

At least I can now blame my hormones when the sound of Eileen’s false teeth clip-clopping round her mouth makes me want to lean over yank the blasted things out and pour a gallon of dental fixadent into her gawping mouth. I’m not psychotic, just female.

Unfortunately the sound of her clip-clopping teeth has awoken in me a crazed obsession with dental hygiene. I am following a strict twice-daily regime of zealous electric tooth brushing, flossing and mouth washing. It is my hope to maintain my gnashers so that I can avoid sounding like the horsemen of the apocalypse when I eat a piece of toast in my later years.

According to my dentist flossing is the most important dental hygiene procedure and the part that I find most tedious. She suggested flossing while watching T.V. Now frankly this is stupid advice, because once upon a time in my pre-marital existence I had a boyfriend who was a tooth-flosser. On a rainy Sunday afternoon we settled down to watch a film, my head settled lovingly in his lap, all very cosy and domestic until he began flossing his teeth mere centimetres from my forehead. As the tartar and spittle pinged off my cheek I contemplated our future together, suffice to say he did not become the Husband.

However, the most bizarre public tooth flossing was committed by the Argentinean man sitting next to us on our budget long haul flight to South Africa last Christmas. Mr Argentine spent a vast amount of time snortling (new word) and phlemming next to my poor Husband. When he grew tired of that he released his in-flight blanket from its plastic wrapping and proceeded to stretch the plastic into long thin fibres, which he used to FLOSS.HIS.TEETH. Spittle, plaque and what I think was a piece of lettuce, proceeded to fly in all directions. I used my Husband as a human shield.

Poor Husband was so angry after French customs had confiscated our two bottles of Christmas Moet that he was incapable of speech the entire flight. Apoplectic with rage he simply shut his eyes, going slightly purple in the face, as bits of Argentine steak skyrocketed round the enclosed space. The Husband in the spirit of Christian love simply turned the other cheek – which promptly became covered in tartar. The only words I heard the poor man mutter where, “Cheese eating surrender monkeys” to which I assume he meant the French and not the Argentine.

Mae West once said, ‘Love conquers all except poverty and toothache.’ Perhaps Love and Dentistry are mutually exclusive.