Homeplace: Bill’s ‘magical’ tooth

Published 5:00 am Saturday, March 9, 2024

My friend Bill is a handsome guy. In the 20 years I’ve known him, he’s retained his boyish demeanor and grin.

That grin, though, there’s a lot of money and a story behind it.

Today, I present to you the chapter titled, “The Amazing Temporary Tooth.”

For as long as Bill has been in my life, so have his legendary dental appointments, the retelling of which causes listeners to shudder.

“I have genetically terrible teeth,” Bill said. “My dad was in the service in WWII and they pulled all his teeth out. It was just simpler.”

My friend wasn’t long into adulthood when the lunch hours spent under a dental drill began.

“I have all these teeth that years and years and years ago I had to start getting fillings in,” Bill said. “Thirty years later this s**t starts to crumble.”

That bite of reality added up to more root canals than he can recall and five dental implants.

A year ago Bill was brushing his teeth — there’s not a man I know more obsessed with oral hygiene — and boom, a front tooth wrapped in a crown was loose in his mouth.

He’d been here before. Like the time a tooth snapped off and its two immediate neighbors cascaded off as a show of support.

But this time it was a public-facing tooth.

None of Bill’s tricks, like a wad of gum stuck in his God-given gums, were appropriate.

“I thought maybe they could just glue the crown back up there but no, this was the actual tooth and nothing could be done. They just had to pull it,” Bill said.

Afterward Bill was outfitted with what the industry calls a “flipper.” Seriously.

This is a placeholder after a tooth is lost from injury or extraction. It’s made of acrylic and held in place by a plastic base. Bill reports his was bulky and “very uncomfortable.”

It looked fine for what it was supposed to do, but wearing the flipper dried out his mouth and made eating a chore. So much so that dining in public was a gamble Bill was unwilling to take, even after paying several hundred dollars for the gadget.

One evening he was watching TV and found himself drifting off. He removed the offending appliance, looking for a place to stash it away from his dogs’ reach.

Dogs are big fans of pretend teeth, night guards and retainers. They love to chew and they love the smell of their owner’s breath. Added into one fabrication and its canine Nirvana. Bill knew this.

“So I put it in this candle, thinking there’s no way the dogs are going to be able to reach this. But when I woke up, it was gone.”

Bill, who hadn’t started the process of getting the implant and a permanent front tooth, called his dentist. Who, it turned out, was also gone.

Getting a new flipper was going to take weeks and another $400. Bill needed a Plan B.

“So I Googled ‘temporary tooth’ and looked on Amazon. There were a lot of choices.”

Right there, in green-boxed glory, was the Amazing Temporary Tooth Replacement Kit, for $20.

This manufacturer promises a lot. High grade, nontoxic material, no special tools or containers needed, an instructional video and a confident smile!

He couldn’t go too wrong at that price point, my friend figured, and in a few days, the promise of dental happiness arrived on his porch.

Like in all things, Bill dove in.

“It has thousands of these beads. You put them in the water, throw that in the microwave and then you form a tooth,” he said.

Not instantly. It took a few tries to get a matching combination of “reasonable facsimile” and biting power.

Those thermo-plastic teeth would each last a few weeks, Bill said.

“And you can eat with them. They are pretty comfortable. It shockingly holds up pretty well. Unlike the flipper, if it pops out, you can make up to 20 teeth with the kit.”

While the company now sells a “natural shade” version, Bill’s only came in bright white, he said.

“It was ridiculous. So I decided to throw it in some coffee and that worked. I guess because I drink a lot of coffee.”

I recalled his stained coffee mugs. Confirmed.

Bill finally has his implant, surrounded by a tooth that’s not budging. His smile is safe, for now, and he’s doing everything to keep it so.

Still, he accepts it’s probably a matter of time before he’ll need the Amazing Temporary Tooth again, he said, laughing.

“You gotta have a sense of humor. … What else are you going to do?”

I smiled.