Took my kids to see the dentist today.  She was a charming South African lady who quickly determined that my daughter needed a trip to the orthodontist because two milk teeth did not have underlying permanent teeth, so she needed them removing and her mouth somehow “rearranged” (as you can see, I have all the correct techical jargon at my fingertips.)  Lindsey was somewhat agitated, though more from a vanity perspective since she was appalled at the possibility of having to wear braces, thereby to be shamed among her peers.  My, how sensitive are a girl’s feelings at 14 – not sure I would have given two hoots!

However, being with the kids in this high-tech dentistry salon did remind me of my last trip there.  The woman’s husband performed his sadistic feats upon me, drilling down to nothing, doing root canals and finally capping me off with a porcelain crown.  The pain and suffering I can live with, though being forced to pay a fortune for the privilege rubs salt into the wound.  Worse still, the bugger insisted on playing Christian rock music the whole time AND singing along to it.  Think people have been murdered for less!!

Why does the dentistry scene in Marathon Man spring to mind as I write this?  You know, that scene were Laurence Olivier’s sinister and sadistic SS officer in modern day NYC captures Dustin Hoffman’s enquiring student, mixed up in the ex-Nazi’s affairs thanks to his brother, and subjects him to a gruesome and excrutiating assault upon the nerve endings…. A friend of mine said this turned him into a “lump of quivering jelly”.  Just remember this next time you go to the dentist… does your man look a bit like Larry, maybe in the half-light of the dentist’s lamp? :S