I Love the Smell of Tooth Powder in the Morning

Had another extensive dentist session this morning. It used to be they needed to plug up cavities and crown my teeth, now they need to fix up the fillings/crowns already there. I don’t understand it: I brush and floss three times a day, but it never ends! Things I know:

• My dentist does not have Highlights for Children in the waiting room. Instead, they have a small cache of cooking magazines. Huh?
• Some time in the past decade, the dental care industry stopped using the mini toilet bowls that you could spit in. I miss mini toilet bowl spitting.
• Unfortunately they still haven’t changed the disgusting taste and texture of tooth polishing grit. Mmm, fake cherry grit!
• My dentist’s chairs used to have lights with a tiny distorted mirror on them, so you could stare at a weird reflection of your own mouth while they worked on you. Now they have a logo where the mirror used to be, so now I definitely know that the lights were made by a company called Belmont in all caps. BELMONT. Beats staring at a poster of a unicorn on the ceiling, which is what my childhood dental office had.
• I only choked once this morning; although the multitudes of instruments/waterers/suckers/fingers simultaneously in my mouth gave me a few claustrophobic moments.