Dentists - The most hated of all medical professionals

Today, my family and I paid a visit to the dentist. Yes it sounds like something out of a mob movie, but no we did not extort them for debts or anything like that. It was simply a check-up and a general tooth maintenance session.

It occurred to me as I sat with my mother and brother in the waiting room that, at 18 years of age, this is what my family outings have degenerated into. No longer will we sit listening to birds chirping merrily in the surrounding bushland, watching the clouds pass by as we enjoy a lovely family picnic. Those days are over. Now we sit in dentist's waiting rooms reading white-trash magazines about Fergie and Prince Andrew - their disintegrated marriage looking rosy by comparisson - and a hard-cover copy of a poorly (if at all) proofread version of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Many thoughts go through your mind as you sit waiting to enter the House of Pain. Firstly, there's the inevitable realisation that you have been reading page after page but have not taken any of it in. With a book like Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is a crucial mistake. With simpler, less intelligent books like maybe Where's Wally or Green Eggs and Ham, this is forgivable. But not a classic piece of literature by George Orwell. Anyway, when this happens, you have to go back a page and read it again, this time trying to block out the hideous, high-pitched squealing sound of the drill or the brush or the angle grinder or whatever it is they use in there.

That's the second thing. The squealing. It has to be one of the most horrifying noises in the world while you're waiting to go in to a dentist. The squealing of the implement, combined with the sucking of that vacuum cleaner they use to clean out your mouth does scary things to your imagination. It sounds like a frontal lobotomy for Christ's sake!

There are some positive aspects of going to the dentist though. One of these is that you don't have to make awkward small talk a la the barber. You go in, you cordially say "Hi, how are you?" and then you lie in the chair and go through fifteen minutes of having strange metal instruments tangled up in your mouth while that whirring, whistling drill thing that you never get to see goes in there, chiselling away at your pearly whites - it's like an episode of the X-Files. Then you leave, say "thankyou" or something of that nature, before paying an exhorbitant amount for their trouble. At the barber, or at the doctor, or at the psychiatrist, you always feel obliged to talk. It's troubling.

Also, at this particular dental surgery, the assistant was fairly easy on the eye. It's almost a shame they shine that enormous light in your face and give you a pair of 1980s sunglasses to pop on. On top of that, there's a time and a place for everything and I'm not sure how it would come off if I were to say "woufhtg, yourghf purrrrty! Hoggghhh wwoo yooh wike tahh [cough] gooh tah dah mooooies wimme?" Roughly translated to: "Golly, you're fine lookin'. Say, would you like to accompany me to the pictures sometime?" I daresay that even on a good day, I wouldn't look my most flattering in a bib with my mouth wide open and flouride all over my chin. Even so, it may be the closest I get for a while to a good-looking girl sticking things in my mouth, so I'll take it.

Apart from that, there's not a whole lot to write home about if you're a dentist. It's said they have the highest suicide rate of any profession. It's fairly understandable when you look at their lives. You get up at 7 in the morning, you go to a sterile working environment where the walls and ceiling are white and the floor is an icky blue colour so you feel like you are working in something out of '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Not to mention the fact that every person you work with hates you. There is no other occupation where this is the case. Finally, what can looking in people's mouths all day do for your sex life? Sweet FA that's what. I can't think of anything more sexually desensitising than poking, prodding, cleaning and whitening other people's teeth all day. Bad breath, ulcers, yellow teeth and gingivitis are just some of the awful things they deal with on an hourly basis. So you go home to your significant other and they're there waiting for you with a glass of wine and a big, disgusting mouth for you to kiss, all the while you're thinking of Mrs. Smith's gaping molar cavity.

No, I don't particularly want to enter the profession. It doesn't call me. Sure they make stacks of money, but so do crook cops and prostitutes. Why not have some fun? I guess we owe them some respect for the work they do. Maybe when my goddam lateral incisor stops aching, I'll consider it!