I got a new retainer a couple of weeks ago.

It came with a pink, sparkly case (I didn’t get to chose my case color, but this one is perfect!) and clings tightly to my bottom chompers so they don’t shift out of place. I had spotted one tooth that looked like he had plans to start his own journey and thought I’d deal with it before he could finish packing his bags and take the rest of his nearby relatives with him.

After being in orthodontics for eight years, I never imagined a desire to want a plastic material to encapsulate my teeth, but I’m OK with the new-age retainers: clear and unnoticeable. Plus, I only have to wear it at night. Not a big deal.

When I went for my impression molds this time around, I was met with an unfriendly, expressionless orthodontist who only spoke when he was spoken to. He looked taller and skinner than I remembered. He was cold. Hard.

I greeted him with  “Good morning!”

His mouth moved, but whether words came out, I’ll never know.

He stretched out a pair of latex gloves scented with an artificial grape flavor and fit his hands into them, then told me to “open,” “bite down” and “open” again.

“So what is it that you want?” he said.

Pointing to the tooth trying to make an exit, I said, “I want that tooth to stay where it is, and the rest of my teeth, too.”

“Well, they’ve all shifted,” he said.

I explained that when I went to see him after my bottom retainer broke back in college when I was consuming a once-frozen and re-heated Jimmy Dean English muffin breakfast item, he told me then that because of the way in which my bite was positioned, I wouldn’t need another retainer.

He denied ever saying that on this visit, however.

After fumbling over his words and angering himself in the process, he hit what I figured was the “up” button on the reclining orthodontic chair I was seated in and walked out of the room.

That’s real manly.

After my appointment and retainer pickup was also a bust, I called my mom to find out why my orthodontist acted so cranky toward me.

It seems that during my teenage years, I was quite bratty and unfriendly — to my orthodontist and to everyone else. (Imagine that!) According to my mother, I “had an attitude.” But, like any middle-schooler whose mouth gear resembles Anthony Hopkins’ mouthpiece in “Silence of the Lambs,” I felt and still feel that I was justified in my decision to act in said way.

Truth is, to this day I still resent him for making me a metal mouth for eight years.

Once upon a time I had a fun metal device hooked to the roof of my mouth  called a spreader, which even came with a little key and keyhole that my mother oh-so-graciously turned for me each night to correct my overbite. I had braces twice (I haven’t heard of any other orthodontist using this method, nor do I know what it accomplishes), two upper retainers — I lost one at the DeSoto Square Mall Chick-Fil-A, and so my family set out to go dumpster diving in order to find it (gross, I know, but those suckers were expensive!), two sets of headgear (how I miss the cracked corners of my lips) and a non-removable bottom-retainer bar that made it incredibly difficult to floss. At least, I think that’s everything.

I’m probably forgetting those unsightly colored mini rubberbands that held my mouth together and the fact that I definitely used the colors to my advantage for holidays. I’ve got award-winning photos of me sporting orange-and-black bands on my teeth. How cute.

 

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