First Impression: Your Smile

Hey people, how’s your summer? Over I suppose. Tough break. As is mine.

I had a thought the other day after I received a photo of my nephew sans his dental braces … damn he looked good!

It was then that I went back in time and tried to recollect my feelings when it was my turn to have braces placed upon my teeth. Not only was I desperately in need of some alignment but also to  prove to others that, yes indeed, my dad was a dentist and he could improve my appearance.

As it turned out, my dad was a dentist and not an orthodontist (who knew?) and was not going to place tiny, metallic braces on his very own sons and daughter.

What?

Are you kidding me ??

Well then who the hell is? Who’s going to place their oversized, grubby  hands into my mouth and fix my misaligned enamel chiclets? I don’t know … I just thought my dad, he with the Dr. in front of his name, was to be that very professional. This was the exact moment he decided to explain to me that there are specialties in the dental field that aligns teeth called orthodontia. He had a fraternity brother that went into that field and he had asked him to take care of his lovely little children in this regard. Oh really?  You’re putting me/us in the hands of a frat bro? Great. No, outstanding.

A frat brother. This being the era of fraternity movies so I was just getting acquainted with the whole “frat brother” equation and, quite frankly, it frightened me. Some beer swilling friend was  preparing to make thousands of dollars while attaching metal and rubber bands to my pearly whites. I ask you, was this a proper way to fix me? Couldn’t my dad do this? Honestly, I was totally under the impression that my dad was going to be ‘the guy’ to deal with my over developing, gigantic teeth. Oh how wrong I was.

I hope you all realize that my dad had been a dentist in his hometown for many years prior to this monumental decision and had indeed done a few braces situations for his prey, I mean patients, during those years so it wasn’t like I was way off base in my thinking. I was just not informed of this el switcheroo. Dad had made a reverse lay-up dead-nuts into my smile. Curses.

I was surprised and taken aback. Were my porcelain wonders that horrible? Could papa not deal? I wasn’t sure. Again, he reassured me that he was just doing me a favor in allowing an expert in orthodontia to do the work that was good enough for his son. Ooooo, I got chills.

Then I was off. Off to see the wizard. The Wonderful Wizard of Ozidontia. Heh, heh.

Menomonee Falls. My smile destination. The beginning of my seemingly straight set of teeth. The office of my dad’s frat bro. The office/pain clinic where I was to be put in a strangle hold and have my  Marathon Man persona placed into a dental straight jacket. This was going to be a great day and just the first one of numerous ones to follow.

Doc D. The frat guy. Doc Sterling D. That was his name. He approached me after recognizing my mom, threw out his massive hand as if I was to take it, shake it and make nice.

Excuse me? Shake his hand? Geez I didn’t even know what was going on? His offices smelled of perfume and after shave. He was going to fix my teeth? My dad’s office didn’t smell this way. Are we in Hollywood? Not exactly, as Menomonee Falls has never been mistaken for that locale, but we certainly were not in Watertown.  My nerves were twitching. If I was being forthright, I was petrified. This place just didn’t seem to be a dental office but rather an art museum with lovely girls strutting around in form-fitting aprons. Horrible? Certainly not but my future was in their collective hands.

I looked up, stared at his friendly, tanned, cleanly pored face and reluctantly put my hand into his. “Nice to meet you Mr. Reinhard,” he said with his finest bedside manner. “I went to school with your dad and we were great friends … his wishes are for me to help you with your teeth and to straighten them the best I know how. That’s what I want, what you want and what I expect to do. Will that be alright?”

After I stopped shaking, I nodded and being barely audible said, “of course.” I thought to myself … have at ‘er but please be careful with those gigantic hands.

Doc D. was that 50ish model cosmetic dental dude. He, with the slightly greying sideburns and richly bronze skin all wrapped into his designer slacks and pastel doc smocks. Rodeo Drive seemed alive and well in downtown Menominee Falls as did his voluptuously tanned Hooter/hygienist girls.(honestly, they looked and smelled outstanding and I was 14)  I had to believe the good doctor was truly gentle yet firm with his hands.

During my months of managing through the pain of having those braces on my teeth, I survived. I cursed at having to play my trumpet while they were on but I endured that situation as well. The whole Reiny chick-magnet thing wasn’t panning out anyway so that was a non-issue. I plodded through the ordeal.

After what seemed like a decade of having Dr. D’s hands in my mouth (it was only a year), tightening, pulling, placing small rubber bands and twisting those tiny metal strands, all just beyond my pursed lips, my teeth came out looking like a beautiful, linear white picket fence. Nice. I was just as pleased as I could be. I felt re-magnetized.

Again, my teeth came out looking magnificent, albeit still rather large for my elongated head but braces couldn’t do miracles. I had realized that it was probably the correct move that dad was not my orthodontist. Yes, not his area of expertise and yet Doc D’s area of expertise was, apparently, bracing his assistants up against his office walls. (his breaks did seem rather lengthy) Maybe I was in Hollywood?

My dad was a great man, a great dentist but maybe not a great determiner of frat brothers. Not bad. Could have been worse. Maybe his other frat bro was an auto mechanic, liked 14 year old boys and my car just broke down. Whoa Nellie.

Sidebar: Just as fine a dentist as my papa was he, too, endured through some tough decisions. For one: he, himself, had just lost a filling but was able to find it. What to do as it was a weekend eve. What would an intelligent, professional man with all the credentials in the dental world do? He thought and thought. As we later found out, his final decision was to temporarily super glue the filling back in place until Monday. This, in his educated mind, would alleviate any discomfort until it was secured professionally. He dabbed a tiny, precise droplet onto his filling at the tip of his right index finger and thusly placed it into the remaining cavity and hold. Would it work? The filling stayed … as did his finger. He walked back into the dining room to ask our mom for “a little help” and we, the dumb kids, sat fixated on our loving father with his finger glued to his tooth.

Hilarious.

His finger popped off with a little extra coaxing and I think the filling held until his next appointment but during the next few years, every once in a while, one of us would walk around as if a finger was stuck to our tooth. Dad, although embarrassed, laughed at his own expense.

Take care of your teeth as they’re the only ones you’re going to have. A first impression is forever and your smile is the first thing that people judge you by. Make it count. Make Doc D. proud, as I know he’s still smiling. And smiling. And smiling.