Does My Dentist Think I'm Easy?

I dropped the last dentist I tried because on my first visit he told me he had a penile implant. He was comparing it to my getting my teeth whitened. Self-improvement. That sort of thing. For some reason he was compelled to tell me this. Funny to hear that from a man who has a giant smiling tooth in his lobby.

Dr. Zarkus' waiting room looked relatively clean, like you should trust that he was a good dentist. His receptionist was pleasant and pretty and had hair like Jennifer Lopez. Her nails were long and had heart decals on them. I figured she couldn't double as a hygienist with nails like that. Or maybe Dr. Zarkus used her on special occasions for tooth extraction. The receptionist smiled a clean-tooth smile and had me fill out a new-patient form. Her nails clicked on the clipboard as she handed it to me.

I looked around the room and got a glimpse of Dr. Zarkus. He was actually cute! He was tall and his hair was a little long and messy for a dentist. Not too long and messy, but in a lab coat it looked wild. He had big blue eyes. I quickly developed a crush on him and was terrified about having him check my teeth out. I don't think that was an unreasonable fear. Women in general don't look attractive with their mouths wide open under a neon light. Or even in candlelight, for that matter. I guess that depends on the circumstances. Anyway, the pain was so bad I was going to have to grin and bear it. Finding another dentist on a Friday night was like not finding a Starbucks on the Upper West Side.

"So you're a golfer," he said, while putting a Novocaine needle into the back of my mouth. "Unh-uh," I grunted as seductively as possible over the hiss of the suction tube. He must have read that off my new-patient form.

"I love golf. I've been taking lessons," he said. He took the needle out and as my mouth was numbing I told him that I played for my college team and actually was a club pro one summer. He was very impressed. Asked me how long I had been playing, where I grew up and so on. Then he told me I had dislodged a filling, he'd put a temporary one in and now I needed gum surgery.

"Gum surgery? Really?" This was definitely not dating chat.

"Your gums grew into your cavity and now you need to have them trimmed," he said.

"Ew," I said. "Nasty." He smiled and gently agreed.

"Sorry you had to see that," I said out of pure vanity.

"It's my job," Dr. Zarkus said. "You may be in a little pain after the Novocaine wears off, so here is a prescription for Tylenol with codeine."

I liked Dr. Zarkus even more. "Do you still teach golf?" he asked.

"Only on special occasions," I said with a Novocaine lisp and a smile.

"I should get your card," he said.

"Sure," I said, and dropped my card on the floor. I went to get it to hand it to him. He had stepped closer to me, which made me very nervous. I dropped the card again. "Whoops," I said like a girl. I went to pick it up again.

"You dropped it again," Dr. Zarkus said softly. Guess he could see that I was not that smooth.

"Well, here you go," I said, handing him the card.

"Excuse me," said a nosy lady over the receptionist's shoulder. "Is Shoshana your Hebrew name?" She was referring to me. Apparently, she thought she saw it on my new-patient sheet and was either super-curious or desperate to talk to a fellow Jew.

"Uh, no," I said. "I don't have a Hebrew name, but if I did, I'd want it to be Shoshana." Then I thought, Oh no! I blew it! What if Dr. Zarkus is Jewish? Like a real practicing one! I'm just a shiksa in his eyes! A golf-playing, gum-deteriorating shiksa!

The receptionist flipped her Jennifer Lopez hair over her shoulder, disgusted that the woman was peering at her new-patient sheets. She spread her long nails over the next sheet, completely covering it.

I went home dejected. And my Novocaine wore off. Not a good Friday night.

The next morning when I came back from walking my dog, I found that Dr. Zarkus had left me a message. "Hi Jill. This is Dr. Zarkus. I'm just checking to see if you're okay. If you need anything, give me a call."

Wow, I thought. Does he call all of his patients? Or just the ones he thinks are cute? Or pathetic? Or easy? What if he tries to pick up all of his female patients? Uses his bedside manner to get young ladies in his dentist bachelor pad for some major drilling?

I became excited yet distrustful. I am scheduled for gum surgery next week and am preparing for it. I am working out, getting my nails done and a facial. I figure that even if my gums are in sick shape, maybe I can distract him with some feminine wiles. Wear some sweet-smelling perfume that will take his mind off my bleeding gums. Do my hair in a way that will make him dismiss the fact that I have a cavity the size of the Grand Canyon. Give him golf tips before I have dental instruments lodged in my mouth. If I concentrate on all those things, then maybe he won't see me as just a patient with a nasty-looking mouth.

But if it turns out he's just being polite and an extra-nice doctor, then I hope he prescribes a whole lot of Tylenol with codeine and never tells me he has a penile implant.