A Girl Thing

Dolly has been cleaning my teeth for a dozen years now. Today she wanted some flight time on the office's new power bleach machine and decided I could not go home without the pearliest white teeth. John, my dentist, agreed I was a perfect candidate.

I asked the price, was offered a generous discount, and bit.

5 hours later, with my gums shedding skin like a scalded snake, I have to say, my teeth have never been more beautiful, and I had a great time. It was a girl thing. Dolly and Marilyn, the office manager, admired my basket-of-flowers handbag, talked about how I'd have to start drinking coffee and tea through a straw, and decided they'd take care of me on their lunch break while John was at the gym, since the schedule was otherwise full.

Marilyn turned on a gentle jazz station she thought I'd like, and while Dolly was setting up the alternating bleach and pain killer applications, protective waxes, gauze, mouth pieces and vaseline, we talked about dating again at "our" age, and why you should never trust a man who brings you flowers. Someone said something about sensitivities, but I was distracting myself with one of my own recent dating horror stories.

They brought out John's camera and took a "before" shot and matched my teeth against a dummy to show just how bad they were. I was a D-3. As Dolly covered every inch of my face with one form of protection or another she told me how her aunt in the Dominican Republic had gone on-line and found her cousin, who's way too skinny, a husband from Canada.

I asked whether they'd get out the deep childhood tetracycline stain I've had for 30 years, but Dolly told me firmly that she was not going to let me leave without perfect, I mean, perfectly white teeth. Dolly is an artist and while she was thoughtfully applying various goos to my teeth I wondered whether the pink lipstick she was wearing would look good on me if I had teeth as white as hers.

When she was done, she gave me a screwdriver and directed me to rap on one of the metal surfaces near me if I needed her to come back in while the bleaching machine was on. Sensitivity is the polite word for a freezer burn that starts to register in your teeth about five minutes into this procedure and spreads with each application up into the bones of your head and neck. I considered using the screwdriver, but decided I wasn't going to be a crybaby.

Dolly didn't take any of the gauze out of my mouth after the first application, or I probably would have mentioned that I was having a little burning sensation, but she was also busy discussing the progress with Marilyn and deciding which teeth needed more attention. Women have very high pain thresholds, I thought, and figured I'd survive.

In retrospect I realize that I might have whined a little had John been doing this, but he didn't get back from lunch until all the gauze was finally coming out of my mouth and Dolly and Marilyn were congratulating me on going from a D-3 to an A-2 on the color chart. Anybody knows that's a huge step in beauty progress.

And really, they look great. I'm hoping that by tomorrow morning the bleeding will have stopped and I'll still be motivated to do the first of the three daily applications John told me I'd need to get out the deepest of the stains. He hinted that a bunch of Advil would probably be a good idea. But it was the comradery that was so nice. It's the same in the beauty salon or manicure shop. Marilyn, by the way, thinks red lipstick would be a great look for me. I may not be smiling at anybody for a few days, but as soon as I can take the paper towel out of my mouth I'm going to try a few colors.