50 Shades of Grim.

I was not blessed with good teeth. It may well have been the radioactive paint my mum used painting glow in the dark bomber dials during the war and my own struggle to get here. Nobody told her not to suck the brush. So this morning’s dentist check up, though few remain, runs to multiple pages; front right three occlusal, dada missing, buckle, amalgam and so it goes on. Like the book, now film, my mouth is a catalogue of human miscreance. My school dentist, a Hitler of the gob, extracted four healthy teeth in an attempt to avoid me looking like a squirrel. Unfortunately it only reduced my chin to the proportions of a Bullingdon Club member. Looking back his constant harassment about teeth cleaning was well meant but at the time I just took it to mean he didn’t like me. In my twenties I had a season ticket for fillings and when I finally had my front teeth capped they looked like two milk bottles amongst the rusting remains of a Vauxhall Cresta front wing. Twenty years on I encountered a woman dentist with a partiality for surgery. Everything required sadomasochistic

gum scalpelling. Another ten years and another woman. She charged me £700 for a top plate on account of my front teeth were now missing altogether. All went well with the hot squidgy impression taking but for some inexplicable reason she retired between visits. That thrust me into the arms of my current dentist who is the best ever. Our first appointment was to fit the plate organised by the retired dentist. Whilst it fitted my front four missing teeth had been reinterpreted into three. That meant my beautiful and to be honest expected human symmetry was replaced by a single middle tooth reminiscent of a genetically modified white trash redneck. Though amusing we decided this wasn’t comely and my best ever dentist made a best ever new one. So over the years my mouth has experienced abduction, perfidy, sadomasochism and being jilted, the dentistry equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey if ever there was one. Without the sex.