Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

I discriminate, though I’m not proud to admit it. No matter how hard I try, I am still an anti-dentite.

I know that dentists aren’t a race escaped from the land of oral hygiene and they won’t have a flag or a team at the Beijing Olympics, so they are not officially a race, a breed. But they have a creed. And that is to fill your fangs and numb your gums while, under the cover of a stiff shot of Novocaine, they impart excruciating pain to your hip pocket.

I live in Bondi and my neighbours are pretty much from everywhere, excepting Bondi. We have a hoot while celebrating a whole range of holidays, from Yom Kippur to Ramadan. Anything that involves food or drink my kids and I are there, lugging our voracious hunger, the Singstar and a bottle or two of Kosher or non-alcoholic tipple.

It’s a tolerant, fun place to live. We mostly respect each other’s differences and rejoice in our varying strengths. The Lebanese family in the flat above always invites us up to share their yummy Friday night feasts if we bang hard enough on our ceiling while chanting FOOD, FOOD, FOOD. And the lovely Rabbi next door does the best Donald Duck impressions, if you close your eyes hard enough. My kids love it and him. My cultural addition to my neighbourhood is questionable, but I make up for my white bread credentials by putting out the communal garbage bins every Monday night.

But I’m with George Kostanza from Seinfeld on the thorny issue of whether you have to love thy neighbour if he or she is a dentist.

My resentment of dentists stayed at a gentle boil for decades. I have more metal in my mouth than Fortescue Mining has shipped, thanks to being a Queenslander raised when the idea of putting fluoride in the drinking water was as laughable as putting sunscreen on toddlers or wearing a jumper to school in winter. Apparently the ruling politicians of the day thought that academic papers singing the praises of fluoride were written by a bunch of communists whose super-secret goal was to cause sterility amongst the prize heifers of Queensland bloke-dom.

The joy of being able to continue to chew or smile without scaring the children has cost me thousands over the years, but it has been a drip feed and I’ve been able to mostly ignore that in the last decade I’ve invested the equivalent of a VW Polo (with a soft-top) into my mouth. That was until late last year when my bridge went too far. It snapped off and I was left with a charming hole in my laughing gear and faced a vortex in my wallet to fix it.

First stop was my Paddington-dwelling, handsome, suntanned dentist. I wanted a quote to fix the mess. He gave me a five point plan for my Renovation Rescue that would involve a specialist, a whitening job, braces, a hammer to the head (mine) and a holiday in the Maldives (for him, paid by me).

I had been separated for a while and was desperate to be at least on the starter’s blocks in the dating race. Facing a potential lover with a visible gap in the gob wasn’t an option. My lack of Oral B appeal might be more than made up for in the oral sex pleasure the lack of teeth may have afforded, but that wouldn’t be discovered till at least the second date, which I’d never get to unless I resolutely didn’t open my mouth. Not an option for the Bondi blonde. If I don’t talk or eat or both at the same time, I growl, then attack.

So I mortgaged the humble home a little more, sold my son’s kidney over EBay and bought into the Bondi dental rescue.

My extreme dislike of my uber-firm dentist (he works out at the Sydney’s most expensive gym, which has handy valet parking for his Toyota Prius) was somewhat ameliorated by my faith in his ability to mind the gap in my mouth and make me purty again.

My hatred was reserved for the periodontal specialist.

He kept me waiting in his Macquarie Street waiting rooms for an hour on the first visit while he downloaded music onto his IPod. I could see him happily humming away as his office faced directly onto the waiting room. That was $20 extra in babysitting as I read a two year old Vanity Fair. On that visit he shoved his slightly garlicky hands in my gob for four minutes, charged me $360, sent me off for an MRI ($560) and gave me a quote for two implants ($5,000). Then I’d be back at the dentist for the falsies ($3,600). Pluck a duck. Indeed, I would have if it gave me a discount. In fact I’d goose a gander, root a rhino or shag a sheep if it saved me the money I had marked for my kids’ education, nothing vital. And if I had to get implants, why couldn’t they be in my chest or butt cheeks or somewhere that made me more attractive to a potential boyfriend, rather than simply less scary?

On my second visit to Dr Periodontist we had a fight. I had sucked away merrily on the Pethidine and was wishing for a slice of lemon to go with the gin and tonic effect when I accidentally touched his hand in my drugged out haze. The guy went ballistic. He was in the middle of a bone implant into my gob, getting it reading for the Titanium implant and I spooked him. Boy did he yell. I was the patient paying him the smackeroos for my smackeroo. He was embarrassed for his outburst, but still. I didn’t need to be yelled at by someone I was paying to be with me. I’m not into dominatrix games, believe me.

The battle plan was set for the next skirmish – our third meeting. This was when the titanium implants were to be hammered into my head. That’s right – one would be hammered, one would be drilled. Hmm that sounded like fun. So there I was, in the chair with the dentist Elvis specs on, awaiting needles, hammers, drills and the whole Bunnings experience. So of course, I was chilled out and having a good time. No concern at all. Dr Periodontist kept me waiting for one hour.

When he sauntered in, I told him off. Who’s paying, bucko? I asked. You’re only a fancy mechanic, so get drilling. Which he did. After three needles, applied almost gently. But boy, he certainly smiled when the hammer came out.

So, we’ve got our last meeting tomorrow, when he screws the new teeth and I get a real smile back on my dial. But the battles are three-Nil in his favour and, until recently, I hadn’t worked out a strategy that would at least give me a sporting chance of getting my own back.

Then I was idly RSVPing for a date for the weekend, when I came across a new, juicy little profile. Apparently dentists don’t get enough love. I’d noticed that Dr Periodontist didn’t wear a wedding band. But that didn’t surprise me, given his profession and his ugly dial, despite his brilliant white teeth. And lo and behold, my man had put up his profile and his picture on the dating website. Apparently this 48 year old was looking for a long term relationship with a woman 22-38 without kids or a brain, but with a career, large breasts and a GSOH. Well, well, well.

Think I might send him a kiss with a photo password of a shot that looks almost like me with a tonne of make-up but nothing like the scared, broke single mum who has being frequenting his waiting, waiting, waiting, room.

And if we get together, I’ll make sure Periodontist-guy doesn’t twig who I am straight away, I’ll enjoy the anticipation. Although I’ve got a rule not to go down on a man on the first, second or even third date, I might make an exception this time. You see, I’ll have all my teeth back by the big night. But I am sure that I won’t be in full control of my crocodile smile as I open wide and say Ahhhh.

Snap.

Three-all. Game over.

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