Creamy Pepper Sauce and the Dentist

Last week, while grocery shopping at HEB a day or two before the holiday, I  bought one of the numerous Meal Deals they offered. The freebie was a  Whataburger sauce. The choices were either a Creamy Pepper or a Hatch Ranch. I would have prefered the Fancy Ketchup.  Alas, Fancy was not an option, and since the photo showed a benign looking black pepper corn--and it was free--Creamy Pepper Sauce came home with me. 

Fast forward to this week. 

I'm at the dentist and my Dental Hygienist stopped what she was doing so we could engage in a Frank conversation about "the effects of aging on our mouths." Specifically, receding gumlines and shifting teeth. 

She then proceeded to work her magic, and much like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, she cleared all kinds of debris from the newly acquired hiddie-holes along my gumline. 

Busted!!

She knew, before I confessed, I have been skimping on my tooth brushing time. For the past week or so my toothbrush timing battery has been on its last leg, and I've quit brushing when it stopped--knowing full well that it was nowhere near two minutes. And, as if that were not bad enough, I have also been out of my favorite floss-picks. Believe it or not, my mouth is actually very small and I have difficulty using regular floss.  I have since purchaed a new timer toothbrush and floss picks.  Clearly, I need to pay  closer attention to the lodging places of small seeds and pepper corn particles.  

Chagrined, I looked away from Judy toward the weathered barn door--which until this visit I thought was purely decorative--just in time to see it closing ever so slowly. 

Had we been in an old-timey horror flick, the sight of the door closing  would have cued the suspenseful music and exaggerated creeeeak SFX. At that point, I would have urged my movie-self to get the heck out of Dodge.  

This was not  horror flick. However, I got spooked nonetheless.  

Nothing phases Judy.  Why should it--she is pulling everything from boulders and car transmissions from my  mouth--and keeping a straight face and her composure as she does it.  

While I freaked out, and did my Don Knotts Scaredy-Pants Dance, Judy laughed and said, "That's just David--he's doing some handyman work around the practice today." 

At the conclusion of  my cleaning, Judy handed me one of her goodie bags (manual toothbrush, and  travel-sized floss and toothpaste, all in a handy-dandy handled bag I hang on a knob and use for collecting jibits of paper in my SUV). 

Dang it if that door didn't move again. 

And it spooked me, again! 

Luckily, I did not repeat my DKSP dance. That would have spooked Judy--and the unknown patient passing my doorway at that moment in  time.  

I was able to calm myself down.  Then, in my most intimidating "Mommy Voice," I commanded, "David! Come here right now!" 

David obliged. 

He was wearing a colorful serape, a cartoonishly large sombrero, and beneath his salt-n-pepper handlebar mustache was the most dazzling smile I've ever seen--not quite as blinding as Ross had during the Friends story called, The One With Ross' Teeth (season 6, episode 8)--I could have come up with a better title than that.  So David's smile wasn't glow-in-the-dark caliber--but close.  

His brilliant smile was  also apropos since David is my Dentist. 

We all started laughing: David, Judy, the passerby patient, and me. 

I'm still laughing.  Even as I type this post. 

In fact, I laughed so hard I snort-laughed--which is almost as awkward as my DKSPD. 

 

I'm also laughing because I'm realizing I can no longer  eat Creamy Pepper Sauce on my sliders--because that was the oddest afternoon nap I've had in a very long time!