oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear....

I went to the dentist today.

My teeth have been worrying me for the last week or so, and I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Who wants to be caught with toothache in South America?

Is it secret? Is it safe?

So I went to the dentist. After about 5 minutes in the waiting room, I was summoned upstairs to the chair. I sat down and waited as the dentist pottered about and asked me a few questions. After a moment or so, I tuned into the fact that there was music in the room. That's not so remarkable in itself: there's often music in the room and it's usually Heart FM or something like that. It was The Strokes, but I didn't really think too much more about it. It would probably be something unspeakable next. It wasn't. It was The Editors. I looked over to the source of the music and saw an iPod Nano perched on a set of Altec Lansing speakers (similar to the ones I have in the kitchen at home).

I looked at the dentist again. He was actually pretty young.

"I think this is the first time I've been to the dentist when they've had an iPod"
"Yeah, I have a playlist of about 1000 songs that I reckon are suitable for patients"
I imagine that some of the old ladies really dig The Editors. I looked over at the nurse.
"Do you get a say in the playlist?"
She shook her head and shot me a long-suffering look. "Nope"
"Are you at least allowed to skip the odd song on?"
She smiled at me. "I've pretty much learned to tune it out"
At this, the dentist grinned at me. Nice.

We talked a bit about iPods in general and about the speakers in particular (he thought they were okay, but found them a bit trebly, especially on Beatles tracks. He wanted some Bose speakers. I thought they were fine for what they were and suggested that if he was after better sound quality, he should try running his iPod through a proper stereo system). We both agreed that I should definitely try to take mine to Ecuador.

As visits to the dentist go, it was a pretty good one. I just can't shake the feeling that it's wrong that I can have this conversation with my dentist. Since I was five years old and Mr. Kingham used to look after my teeth at Earls Barton, my dentist has always been a middle-aged guy. Wherever I have been, and whoever I have been seeing, they have always been middle-aged.

This guy was young. He might well have been younger than me.

I'm not sure I'm ready for dentists to be young. I'm certainly not ready for the thought that dentists have actually stayed the same age and it's just me that got middle-aged.

My teeth are fine, incidentally.