From Urbandictionary.com:
Flossin':
1. Showing off an object which usually possesses great value.
2. Rolling in a fine ride with the general intent to enjoy ostenstation, prestige.
But that's not really what i'm talking about. I'm talking about flossin' in the dental context of the word. That's right, the piece of string, the bathroom sink, and a prayer that it really is just a mirror, and not a pane of two-way glass concealing some asshole with a video camera and too much time on his hands. Nobody likes to be blackmailed.
Since early childhood, i've heard them say it to me at the beginning of every checkup, "Have you been flossing after each meal?"
"Yes," i would lie. I'm sure they knew, and they knew that i knew that they knew. You really can't bullshit a dentist, especially at ten years old.
Besides, what self-respecting ten year old has the kind of time to blow standing in front of a mirror, yanking a piece of string back and forth between their teeth?! Not this one, i asssure you (or would have assured you, if i were writing this when i was ten). There were frogs to be caught, dirt to be made into mud, and mud to be made into pies, for Biff's sake! Taking time out of my urgent plans to further explore the wheat field across the street (against the express wishes of the owner of said wheat field), just for basic hygiene every day was distraction enough- that dentist better be glad i spared fifteen seconds to push a brush across my teeth at all.
Priorities, man.
My oral hygiene life went about like that until i got my first cavity when i was. . . fifteenish. I was mortified. Inevitably, the dentist asked the question i'd been sweating since he first pronounced the dreaded C-word (no, not THAT C-word, stay focused!):
"Have you been flossing after each meal?"
I hung my head, and finally confessed my life-long lie: the only times a bit of string ever passed through the between-parts of my teeth were when i had celery and peanutbutter packed in my lunch, and when the dentist himself did it every six months. The dentist frowned with a surliness any Catholic school marm would have been proud of, and gravely told me that this cavity could have been prevented if i'd only taken a little time out of my day to floss.
Oh, fine. Rub my nose in it, why dontcha?
Then he delivered the REALLY bad news- if i didn't start flossing, i was going to be wearing full dentures before my senior prom.
I was fairly sure he was making this up, but he DID have that dour countenance, and all those frightening pictures of gingivitis and rotting teeth festooning the walls like the disease wing of a periodontal art gallery. Before i could stop it, a vision of my top dentures coming loose in my boyfriend's mouth when he kissed me for our prom pictures popped into my head. I could already see the revulsion in his face, and the corner of pinky-fake gums and back molars hanging out of his mouth, immortalized on celluloid. Making shit up or not, this was not a vision i was willing to risk seeing become reality, and i gave in. I resolved to give this flossing thing a try.
Flash forward to the present day, i now go insane if i don't have any dental floss available right after i eat. I can just feel my teeth starting to decay right in my head; i can envision all the bacteria swarming and descending on my undefended enamel with their little jackhammers and hard hats, trying to get under my gums and rob me of my ease of mastication. I will even ask random strangers if they have any floss, to escape this feeling. You'd be surprised at the number of people who sympathize with my paranoia, and break me off a bit of waxed, mint-flavoured oral salvation before going on their way.
Or maybe it's their way of distracting me in order to make good their escape, like a wolf gnawing off a paw stuck in a trap.
Either way, I will not succumb to a life of polident and sea bond so easily. I'd like to thank that nameless, faceless dentist of my childhood for assisting in the birth of one of my first OCD fixations.
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