Dentist Chair (Fun Poem 99) Poem by David Harris

Everyone hates the dentist
some much more than me.
Just the thought of the drill
and the light in your eyes
puts the chills up me.

One of my worst encounters
of the dentist chair came in the 1960’s
when a cold in a tooth made my face swell
on one side like a melon
and I could only drink through a straw.
They knocked me out to remove the tooth.
Having no recovery room
they put me back in the waiting room
and sat me in a chair out there.
It was the dawn of the plastic moulded ones
and the one I sat on was so slippery
I kept slipping down.
I mumbled aloud about the dentist being no good.
Some of his patients took one look at me
and decided I was right, then made a hasty exit
from the waiting room.
With the side of my face swollen to the size of a melon
I can understand why.

Another encounter with a dentist
was quite a few years later.
A different dentist with a wholly different approach.
He was having his waiting room decorated
and I was the only one there.
He came in with a Cheshire grin across his face.
“Mr Harris, do you mind if this gentleman
takes out your teeth today? ”
Being I and thinking it was a student,
I said I didn’t mind.
The dentist then said, “He is my interior decorator.”
The smile still implanted on his face.
I nearly ran out of there.

Now the third tale concerns my wife
and she fears the dentist even more than me.
She had an appointment
and when we arrived,
the surgery was closed for lunch.
We went for a little walk
and all the cars we passed had dents in the side.
“See that.” I said.
“Yes.” She replied.
“That’s what the dentist does
when he can’t get his own way.”
As we approached, a corner
there was a church on the other side.
“Why don’t you nip in there for a quick pray
that the dentist doesn’t come back? ”
She thumped me I wonder why.
As we walked back to the surgery I assured her,
that everything was going to be OK.
They calm you as soon as you walk in.
She looked at me suspiciously and asked how?
They have a big mallet just above the door
and bop you on the head as you walk in.
Your teeth fall out in the process
and the job is done.
Now I wonder why she has never asked me
to go to the dentist with her again.

1 April 2009