By Bob Copperstone
My connections with dentists in Wahoo as a young boy had always been fraught by distrust on my part.
I hated dental appointments, and a dentist was anything but happy to see me come trembling in with a well-founded fear of seemingly inevitable pain.
There were three dentists practicing in downtown Wahoo in the 1950s – Drs. R.E. Sklenar, William L. Kling and William Houfek.
Dr. Kling often drew the short straw as my dentist. Bad news for both of us, I guess. His office was right across the street from the Wigwam Café. I probably spent more time at the family-owned Wigwam than at my own home on 9th Street.
Anyhow, one day when I was about 9 years old Mom had lied to me and said I was only going in to have a dental checkup. She had to misinform me in order to get me there.
So here I was reclining on the torture chair, squirming and terrified, with Dr. Kling advancing upon me brandishing a huge Novocain needle to prepare for the dreaded drill.
I played the familiar children’s ace card for getting through a tight spot:
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I squeaked.
Dr. Kling sighed, signaling his impatience, but he had to put down his needle weapon. When a kid’s gotta go, he’s gotta go. It was my last refuge.
I scampered out the office door and found the bathroom down the hall. Dashing in, I locked the heavy wooden door behind me. The minutes ticked by
I refused to come out.
I didn’t have a Plan B, but all I knew was that as long as I was locked in here, no one could hurt me.
Dr. Kling and the nurse tried to coax me out. I remained stubbornly silent.
They had to call Mom at the Wigwam to come get me
That’s all I remember. I suppose I eventually had to take my medicine, as it were, and Dr. Kling got to have his way with my molars.
As I knew it would, I’m sure it hurt like crazy.
To this day, my antipathy toward dental work remains as strong as when I was 9. And I find myself scoping out bathroom locations whenever I visit a dentist’s office.
But to this day, Mom’s not around anymore, and I still don’t have a Plan B.
No Rush For Gold
I wrote this for the University of Nebraska Lincoln Dental School students who worked on my mouth. They got a kick out of it.
I lost the gold crown on one of my molars recently.
I probably swallowed the sliver of gold, but since the tooth itself remained and my tongue never recognized the loss, I didn’t know exactly when it went down my gullet.
Some years ago I had them extract a gold-crowned tooth. They gave me the tooth in a small envelope that I mailed to a scrap-gold firm, receiving a check back for around $100.
But this time, recovering the gold was going to be messier, involving close examinations of my digestive processes. I was dreading that.
Unsure of the exact time the gold was ingested, I knew I had to begin the salvage process immediately.
Kneeling in the bathroom for the first time to survey the specimens bobbing around in the gold field’s waters, my heart sank.
I realized that the tiny scrap of dental gold wasn’t likely to show itself on the outer or above-water fecal surfaces. Frequent messy, hands-on exploratory examinations and probes were going to be necessary.
I’ve never been tested for it, but I’m sure I suffer from coprophobia (fear of feces). I have every symptom.
So, I thought to myself, how much would I be willing to pay to avoid going through all this?
I knew the answer immediately.
Relieved, I got up off my knees, flushed away the possible Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and lowered the lid.
Best one-hundred dollars I ever forfeited.
