I should’ve found a new dentist years ago. The fact that Dr. Patel has stopped giving me his signature scratch-and-sniff stickers and started calling me “the Elder” might have been enough to force others out by now, but not me. We’ve been through too much together: dozens of cleanings, six fillings, two extractions after an unfortunate encounter with the bottom of a swimming pool, and one nitrous-fueled hallucination wherein the toucans on the ceiling flew down to greet me. And history aside, where else am I going to find a free Pac-Man machine in the waiting room?
Continue reading: https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-118-fall-2022/cavities-and-debris