Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
July 3, 2007

Teenaged Tim’s Teeth are a Tinselly Tragedy

Journal Entry:  April 17, 1985 (age 15)

Adolescence is about defining oneself, and I recently added the finishing touch to the carefully cultivated image I present to the world.  My new mouthful of glittering metal braces nicely complements the Coke bottle glasses, the facial blemishes, the unruly red hair, the pallid complexion, and the skin-and-bones physique.  I am boy – hear me snore.

Oh well, braces are better than the bizarre bondage apparatus known as headgear.  For much of my middle school years, the awkward wires hooked to a retainer in my mouth were lashed to padded brown straps that traversed my skull.  It looked like my head was in traction.  Now, at least, all the orthodontic hardware is within the confines of my mouth.

Today, my mom picked me up at Seton Catholic Central High School and drove me to my orthodontist appointment.  Orthodontists, like dentists, need to radiate friendliness and warmth to offset the violence they seek your permission to inflict.  Dr. Donald Bronsky is friendlier and warmer than most, and his eternally sunny disposition does make the process less traumatic.

Dr. Bronsky’s office, on Court Street in downtown Binghamton, reflects his cheery outlook.  I think it’s a good bet that his is the only orthodontist office in the world that replicates the look and feel of a circus tent.  In fact, it is a circus tent.  The ceiling is covered with yellow and white striped canvas.  Colorful, vintage circus posters adorn the walls.  The seats in the waiting room are the ottoman-like things that trained elephants and lions stand on.  Bronsky is a serious collector of all things related to the circus, and one suspects that he would rather be taming tigers than teeth.

Today’s freak show was my mouth.  The bands of metal around each tooth are hooked to wires that connect them to the other teeth.  I was there to have these wires tightened.  I think the technique was first used during the Inquisition.  As I lay there watching the auto-repair tools entering and exiting my mouth, I sent a psychic message to my future self:  “This had better be worth it, because you owe me big time.”

I was also given a new package of tiny rubber bands, which are hooked between teeth on the top and bottom of the mouth to enforce a kind of artificial lockjaw.  To offset any negative feelings I might have toward these tiny implements of torture, the packages are labeled with the names of cuddly animals.  I had been wearing “Monkey” rubber bands, and now I will be wearing “Koala Bear” rubber bands.  When my mouth really starts to ache, this allows me to think that there are lovable critters in my mouth, playfully yanking my bicuspids to and fro in a kind of jungle Olympiad.

I know that someday, I’ll be grateful to Dr. Bronsky for his expertise, and to my parents for their generosity.  But sometimes I wonder if I could get along just fine looking like a deranged pauper from a Dickens novel.

© 2007 Tim Mollen

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