No photo – I’m having some technical troubles.
So, we had to have flouride treatments at the dentist’s office when I was a kid. I don’t know why – I guess because that toothpaste I was slathering on daily wasn’t cutting it? Whatever.
The fluoride treatment the absolute worst part of the dental visit for many reasons. One reason was because of The Machine. The Machine was (and remember, this is from the faded memory of a kid) a hulking steampunk monstrosity that had hoses and tubes and grinding gears and such. It was kept in a back room of this old victorian house, where it was dark and full of fluoride-loving spiders. (I’m positive about that.) They strapped you into a restraining chair and asked the dreaded question, “What flavor?” Here’s where you had to decide what delicious flavor you didn’t want to love anymore. The choices were cherry, orange or grape, but they all tasted like slightly-sweet vomit. The doomed flavor was poured into a tray, hooked up to a bubbler hose, then put into your mouth. You had to bite down on the tray while The Machine bubbled grape vomit around your teeth for an interminable length of time. Then the Assistant pulled it out, making ropes of grape-spit string all over your face. Rinse, spit. Rinse, spit. Gag.
Then – HORRORS – you had to do the whole process for your BOTTOM teeth, so now the tray was upside down and leaked grape vomit into the bottom of your mouth.
I’m getting woozy recounting this story. I have to stop.