Love your broken tooth

I don’t know the names of my teeth.

Do you?

Oh, sure, I know “Front Tooth” and “Back Tooth,” but that’s the extent of my dental lexicon.

So, I can’t tell you the exact name of it, but I broke the Tooth- Beside- The-Front-Tooth in half a few weeks back. Did your mother ever tell you never to open a plastic bag with your teeth? Turns out the woman knew what she was talking about. I was desperately trying to open a bag of Ginger Chews because they, quite frankly, are the nectar of the gods and I harbor just the teeniest addiction to them. As in I must stop at the Metropolitan Market in West Seattle to find them before boarding a cross-country flight or there’ll be hell to pay at 37,000 feet. Hypothetically, of course.

So there it was, half gone. HALF GONE. I tried sticking it back on with toothpaste. It is called tooth PASTE after all. That didn’t work. They lie. They should just call it tooth cream. I had just bought new wax earplugs to survive any snoring that might or might not take place in my home, so I cut off a tiny corner of one of the earplugs to try to stick the tooth remnant back on. No go. I tried sticking a Chicklet onto the stub so you couldn’t notice, at least from a distance. That worked from 50 feet, but was noticeable if you got any closer than that, and it kept dissolving and falling off, which might have been more disconcerting to the viewer than the broken tooth. Plus I had lunch meetings to go to and couldn’t figure out how to eat with a Chicklet stuck on my tooth-beside-the-front tooth (let’s call him Reet for the sake of abbreviation)

I hadn’t been to the dentist in a while. A year or so ago, he had told me I needed some dental work done, but, frankly, I didn’t have the money for what he needed to do, so had to put it on hold.

When Reet fell off with great abandon, I dialed the dentist’s office.

“My tooth-beside-the-front-tooth just broke in half!” I shrieked in a not-moving-my-head kind of way. “Can I get in to see the dentist today?” I asked, thinking of all the meetings I had scheduled, including one an hour later that day. What would people think if I showed up with half a tooth?

“Well, Patti,” the receptionist said. “I see you haven’t yet come in to have the dental work done that the dentist suggested.”

Um. What does this have to do with my current tragedy, I thought to myself.

“No, I really haven’t been able to afford it,” I answered. “But this is kind of an emergency.”

“Well,” she hesitated. “I’m going to have to see if the dentist still wants to see you as a patient.”

Blink.

“Excuse me?” I replied. “Um, it’s just that I have a bit of an emergency here. Tooth. Front. Broken in half?”

“I’ll check with the doctor and call you back.”

Okay, I had to arrange a payment plan for the last work he did, so perhaps I’m just not a top priority for him. I get that. But c’mon. A broken front tooth? I’m being fired by my dentist in the middle of an emergency, and a visible one at that?

Sure enough, the call came in while I was out at a meeting trying to hide Reet with my tongue, a strategy that I’ll have to admit wasn’t very effective. In fact, that meeting was the beginning of my exploration of appearance—why does a broken tooth matter so much? Or any other kind of “defect”? What was the impact of that “defect” on me?

The receptionist explained in her message that the dentist really was only interested in treating patients who showed a vested interest in their overall dental health and wasn’t interested in treating patients only on an emergency basis. “If you are able to commit to the full program of work he outlined for you, we’d be happy to see you, but not for this emergency work. When you are ready to do the full work, give us a call back and we’ll be glad to set up an appointment.”

Blink.

I’d been fired by what appears to be a Morally Indignant Dentist (MID). That was a first for me. And to be honest, it felt just a wee bit like blackmail. Don’t you think I’d like to fix what needs fixing? I wanted to call back and ask. Don’t you think if I had the money to do it, I would have come in to have it done?

It was an odd feeling, being fired by a Morally Indignant Dentist. Where does one go after that? Is that the bottom of the barrel? Is there no way to go but up after that? Is it a lifetime of gruel and mush after that?

I decided to ask my wonderful neighbor, Pam, for her recommendation, and found a great dentist with small hands and a gentle spirit. Because of my schedule and his, he fixed my tooth after a week of broken smiles and ordered a lovely all glass porcelain crown for me which I hope my kids will enjoy inheriting someday since it is now one of my most expensive possessions, surpassed only by all those gym memberships I bought and never used.

What I wanted to do and what I did in response to being fired by my Morally Indignant Dentist were two different things. What I did was write a nice note thanking him for his years of service and requesting my x-rays since I didn’t think it likely (i.e., When Hell Freezes Over) that I’d be coming back for extensive dental work there. What I wanted to do was, like I said, something different. But being the self-actualized half-toothed crone that I am, I restrained myself.

This story, however, is not about the Morally Indignant Dentist, however tempting that might be to expound upon and cast in a major motion picture. No, this story is about what I did and felt with my broken tooth, the impact that tiny gap had on me, how I compensated for it, and what I learned.

What was it about a broken tooth that seemed so shameful to me that I wanted to cancel appointments and meetings, stay home, and hide during that week? In fact, that’s not what I did—what I did instead was worse. I went to all those meetings and in my discomfort, I inoculated those I met with a disclaimer and, I’m ashamed to say, a joke about being a redneck.

I found myself so embarrassed by that simple broken tooth that I disparaged myself and made redneck and hillbilly jokes. Perhaps I felt I could, since I’m from here, I don’t know. I participated in unjust stereotypes to deflect judgment by others—it is hard to admit it, but true. I negated my own discomfort by lashing out in this insidious, “I’m better than they are but feeling unsure” kind of way.

I found myself fascinated by the process, and deeply shamed by it. And it was difficult to stop, to just own the broken tooth without making a remark at the expense of myself or another group.

“External oppression is the unjust exercise of authority and power by one group over another. It includes imposing one group’s belief system, values and life ways over another group. External oppression becomes internalized oppression when we come to believe and act as if the oppressor’s beliefs system, values, and life way is reality.”

“’Self-hate’ and ‘internalized racism’ are other ways of saying internalized oppression. The result of internalized oppression is shame and the disowning of our individual and cultural reality.”

What stereotypes were caught up, for me, in the image of broken teeth? What other physical characteristics do I hold unconscious stereotypes (and preferences) for? How do they limit my ability to interact with the people who hold those characteristics?

Is my sense of self so tenuous that half a tooth can knock it loose?

I was quieter, more muted, less outgoing, less talkative that week. It changed me, my way of being in the world. When I did speak, I exaggerated my smile to make fun of it. I saw myself doing it. Did I want to post photos with this essay? No. Evidently I am still processing that damned tooth.

Turns out, the Morally Indignant Dentist did me a favor by his refusal, which allowed me those seven days to explore my discomfort and what I did with it.

I still want my x-rays back.

37days Do it Now Challenge

If an evaluative word leaps to mind when you see someone on the street, at work, in a meeting—stop. What stereotypes do you have about people with that physical characteristic? How did you come to that conclusion about people with that physical characteristic? Is it possible it is not true?

And what are you willing to make fun of yourself about? Perhaps that merits exploration on your part, too. Is it a deflection of what you assume people think about you, what they are judging you for, what you feel shames you? Is it a part of the story you’ve begun telling yourself about yourself?