Open wide

I found myself this morning in an unsettling position: in the dentist’s chair for routine dental work (or at least would-be routine if I visited the dentist with any regularity): a general cleaning and a filling replacement.

Mouth agape, gums numb, I lay there vulnerable, staring up into the eyes of my dentist and his assistant. Alternating between drill and pick, the dentist dug in, maintaining a basal level of small talk with his assistant (I wonder if they have the same rehearsed conversation over every patient) while tinkering with my pearly (or, more accurately, coffee-stained) whites.

Midway through the filling, I detected a hint of frustration from my dentist. To his assistant, as if I were so overpowered by the local injection of novocaine that I was oblivious to his words, he said, “He has a large tongue.”

I had never before heard the size of my tongue (or anyone’s other than Chaim Witz's) so described.

“You have a large tongue,” he repeated, this time to me.

“Mmmm,” I replied, unable to articulate much more than that.

To his assistant: “Please hold his tongue back.”

Fiddle, scrape, drill.

Under his breath: “Man, that tongue is big.”

Fiddle, scrape, drill.

Again, to his assistant, “I said, please hold his tongue back. It’s flopped over onto his tooth.”

I tired to help by keeping my tongue to the left of my mouth, but it was difficult to maintain any control over my numbed oral organ, perhaps due to its sheer magnitude.

I’ve always known I had a big mouth; now I’ve got the tongue to fill it.