Stressful situations call for a retreat into giddiness.
“Can I have laughing gas?” I asked. I was living in another state at the time and was crazy for banter. The dentist said he didn’t have laughing gas.
“Do you want my mouth open or closed?”
“Well, we could leave it closed but we wouldn’t get a hell of a lot accomplished,” he said.
When he gets sarcastic, I toss out a couple of Joseph Mangle quips, which he hates.
I later asked his no-nonsense hygienist if a patient had ever tried to bite her. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to try, are you?”
“No, no,” I assured her. “Just curious.”
Still she approached me as though about to floss a crocodile. I widened my eyes at her, feigning insanity. Her jaw clenched.
I heard later that she thought I was uncooperative. Just coping, was all I was doing. Cooperation is a two-way street requiring that both parties to any dental transaction have a sense of the absurd.
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