If you don’t have anything better to do (and the fact you’re reading this blog means you probably don’t), try this little exercise.
Step 1: Bite down firmly on something reasonably hard (say, the end of a pencil)
Step 2: Smile
Step 3: Curl your tongue up so the bottom of it is resting on the roof of your mouth
Step 4: While doing all of the above, hold your head perfectly still for 30 seconds.
Something to try next time you’re out drinking with friends? Possibly, if you can find enough pencils. But in my case there were no friends, and certainly no drinks. Just a lone man and his x-ray machine.
It was meant to be just a regular check-up at my dentist. And it was, for the first ten minutes. But then he said something you never want to hear from a dentist: “I’ve never seen that before.”
One of my wisdom teeth, which has been lying dormant under my gum my entire life, has decided to make an appearance. I must be the only 38-year-old man who’s still teething.
What I want to know is, why now? Why not when I was younger, when I needed all the wisdom I could get? More importantly, when my mother would have let me miss school for a few days?
My dentist has been pushing me to get them all taken out for years. But I’ve resisted so far (largely by being too disorganised to get the x-rays done), thinking that if they stay out of sight, everything will be okay.
But now there’s no denying the fact they’re down there, and will probably do more harm than good. (I’m sure any the wisdom they contained will be well and truly gone by now.) So after my check-up I got the x-ray done, handed it in, and am now waiting for the bad news.
I think I need a drink. But please, no pencils.