My dentist has told me that I have tight teeth. Apparently the spaces between my teeth are unusually small. Doesn't seem like such a big deal until you get something stuck between them. Then it becomes an all-night ordeal; one that requires ingenuity, strength and patience.
Just last night I had a piece of a peanut caught between my top front teeth. So I got out my slick waxed dental floss to work it out. After about 5 minutes of carefully sawing the floss back and forth between my teeth, I still had not extracted the peanut. So I decided to just pull the floss out and hope that the nut popped out with it. But I found that I couldn't do that. Because now the dental floss was stuck. It wouldn't even move anymore--not at all. It was totally frayed and locked in place, all jammed up in there with that stupid nut. So now I have a nut in between my top front teeth along with 2 long white strings of floss dangling out of my mouth laying across my lip and hanging down my chin.
After 15 more minutes of futile, maddening tugging at the floss which is now a tangled mess crammed up between my 2 teeth, I rummaged through the bathroom cabinet hoping to find some tool or mini crowbar to use to work on my problem. Oh yay! I found some really slick, super slippery glide floss, which states clearly on the package that it "easily gets to 100% of hard to reach places for an ultimate clean without fraying, catching, or sticking." Great! Sounds like I found the solution. So I tear off a good long strand of the silky-feeling blue dental floss, wrap it tightly around my fingers, and get to work.
After several minutes of working the floss into the spot, I begin gently pulling at it so that I can work it back out, skillfully pulling on the smooth blue floss, which at this point is nearly amputating the tips of my fingers. But I keep at it as I am anxious to set the both the peanut and the dangling, mangled white floss free. At this point I begin wondering if anyone has ever had an accidental tooth extraction with floss, as it now feels like I am on the verge of pulling my tooth out. On about the 5th gentle tug the slippery smooth, easily-gets-into-100%-of-hard-to-reach-places blue floss breaks. That's right. Apparently it can get into 100% of the hard to reach spots, but not always out of them. And now, it too is stuck between my teeth and won't budge.
So ---- I take a good look at myself. I am standing in front of the mirror, with 2 long strands of white floss, and now 2 additional very long lengths of blue floss hanging out my mouth, down my chin, and continuing to dangle down about shoulder length. Oh--and one very annoying peanut poking out near my gumline. And the peanut is now jammed further up into my gums so that it feels much larger and is even more uncomfortable.
With no solution in sight and my precious beauty sleep ticking away, as it is now close to midnight, I get out a pair of scissors. I cut the 2 white and 2 blue strings of floss that are hanging out of my mouth. I trimmed them as close as I could to my teeth. I was out of ideas. And patience.
As I headed off to bed, I was certain that there would be a lot less smiling going on in those therapy sessions tomorrow.
....and all I could hope for is that the following day my patients would not notice my new tooth accessories. (although blue and white are my colors)
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