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A TOOTHLESS STORY

It started with a fairly simple personal inconvenience. An indulgent bite into a chocolate bar and a cap fell off a tooth.

But not just any tooth. The big one -- smack bang in the middle of the upper row. Smile and it was like looking at the toothy face of Luna Park after a truck had ram-raided it.

And, as I quickly discovered, it wasn’t just a cap. It was the whole tooth. Absolutely sheared off at gum level.

That was the best bit of the next six days.

I spat out the tooth, washed it, and promptly dropped the expensive porcelain into the bathroom basin porcelain.

So how did you spend your Friday night, Dezza?

Dismantling the S-bend under the sink.

Saturday was meant to be a fun day at the Grand Prix but vanity prevailed and I cancelled. The gap in the teeth was so cavernous that I looked like British comedian Terry Thomas. And he is dead.

Re-setting the scene: Here you are with an unwanted hole in your cake-hole at the start of a long weekend. Bingo. And my dentist wasn’t answering her mobile because she was having a baby. Some excuse!

So how did you spend your Saturday night, Dezza?

At a 24-hour cosmetic dentistry emergency service in East Bentleigh.

A skilled and obliging dentist interrupted his Saturday night to drill into the root canal, insert a temporary post and glue back the tooth I had retrieved from the bathroom plumbing. He also took an x-ray and gave me the comforting news that I also had an abscess festering in my gum.

Sunday at the Grand Prix was fine. The picket fence repaired I could safely smile with the best and rest of them in the Qantas lounge area while watching a middle-aged couple at the next table banging crossed fingers on the table. The woman burst into happy tears as David Coulthard took the chequered flag.

She had every reason to be emotional. It was the Scottish champion’s mother.

(And why was Coulthard, in full racing gear, walking through the tables and signing autographs a couple of hours before the race when Qantas isn’t his sponsor? Because years ago when he was a virtual “ nobody” they got him on to a flight and treated him well and he has never forgotten it).

But back to the teeth. On Monday (the public holiday) the superglue held like the stuff you see in the TV commercials. On Tuesday, confident and emboldened, I chomped into a salami, lettuce and Swiss cheese roll on Turkish bread.

Ten minutes later the tooth was wiggling. Thirty minutes later it was gone. Luckily not consumed in the lettuce or the cheese.

Now, as I have said, you look pretty goofy with a black hole in the middle of your mouth. Not quite a Steinway but it doesn’t look classy with a couple of keys missing.

And it is hard to conduct your daily production meeting for the radio programme with even a scintilla of authority when you know you look like a dero and when your tongue (with a mind of its own) keeps exploring the cavity.

Can anybody explain this? Why does the slightest cavity in your mouth feel like a giant pot-hole and why does a missing tooth make your mouth feel like the Grand Canyon’s Mt. Rushmore with a couple of Presidents missing?

The timing of the second tooth loss was exquisite. Ellen Fanning and an SBS crew had flown from Sydney for a series of TV specials she is doing on ethics in the media. Some of you would say it must be a very short series.

They had just set up lights and cameras in an AW studio. My producer was trying to explain we had a problem. I cut to the chase. I smiled at Ellen. They postponed the interview.

I couldn’t postpone the Drive programme and went on air with such a sibilance that I felt like Ita Buttrose. And don’t say “ I’ll get her for you”.

So what were you doing at 7.30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Dezza?

Lying on my back for two hours at a whiz bang cosmetic dentistry practice in East Caulfield having root canal treatment and an abscess drained and the canal “ dammed” and a new post and temporary tooth put in to replace the weekend temporary tooth.

It is reassuring, at half past seven in the morning, to be earnestly told that the draining has been fantastic because there is some pus and that means the healing should be fantastic. The idea of walking around with pus in your mouth revolts me at any time of the day.

And the macho man did it all without a local anaesthetic because those numbed face, wearing off, hours are more uncomfortable than a bit of pain. Most of the tooth was as dead as an old tree trunk anyway (that’s why it snapped off) and the most discomfort was when they lasered off some excess gum growth.

Wednesday’s conference was a gem. The Point Nepean story was breaking. The Federal Libs were playing Santa Claus “ gifting” huge tracts of Defence Department land to the Victorian people while offering the Bracks Labor Government the chance to buy 90 hectares at “ market prices”. And cockily set a one-month deadline.

Within hours John Thwaites was telling me there was no way the Government would buy the land. He did a triple pike and spin when I produced the transcript that showed Premier Bracks promised to buy the land in that one debate on the ABC with Rottweiler Doyle.

On a personal note, I was again having trouble with my tooth. It was suddenly as wobbly again as a politician’s election promises. At 9p.m. it was no longer wobbly. It had fallen out. Again.

So what were you doing at 7.30 a.m. Thursday morning Dezza?

I think by now you know. Not back to the future but back to the dentist.

That’s the drill. And I never believed in the tooth fairy anyway.

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002