Tag Archives: teeth

ONE TOOTH TOO MANY

Throughout my lifetime, I have had many jobs. My first job out of high school was working as a dental assistant for Edward G. Wozniak in Haddon Township, NJ. In the second semester of my senior year of high school, I had enough credits to graduate early. So, the school allowed me to work part-time after school. The school found a position for me with Dr. Wozniak, a young man who practiced dentistry out of his home. His wife attended Saint Mary of the Angels Academy as a girl. That is why she called Saint Mary’s, asking if one of the students was looking for a job.

His practice had two patient rooms, a small lab where he repaired dentures and partial plates, and a very small room where I, as his dental assistant, developed xrays. Dr. Wozniak didn’t schedule patients on Wednesday as it was his day off. He went golfing which was apparently a traditional habit among dentists in the early 1970’s. 

Wednesday, I spent the majority of the day in the dark room developing xrays, cleaning the patient exam rooms and the lab, and typing notices to patients that they had overdue accounts and also reminders of their next appointments. The phone never stopped ringing all day. I would answer the phone and say, “Good morning, Dr. Wozniak’s office. How can I help you.”

Dr. Wozniak and I had a cordial relationship. We worked well together. He was a young man who was married and had two children during the time I was working there. I have to say, overall, I found that I enjoyed working and earning money. Since I was, for the first time, able to buy myself things that I wanted or needed. Before working there, the only way I had to earn money was by babysitting for my older sister’s young children. In fact, I liked taking care of their little kids, but the pay was not great.

On Wednesday, Dr. Wozinak was playing golf, or so I thought. I finished my work early and walked over through the office door exit to the Wozniak’s kitchen. I didn’t see Mrs. Wozniak, so I called out to her.

She didn’t answer, and then I heard a voice say,” What’s going on?” It was Dr. Wozniak, standing there in his underwear. I was so shocked to see him without his usual attire or any attire other than his underpants. I ran out of the house altogether and out to my car. And I went home. I lived about a twenty-minute drive from Oaklyn, NJ, in Maple Shade, NJ, and when I got home, my parents were surprised to see my home so early. They were sitting at the kitchen table. And my mother said, “Is everything alright, Susan? You’re home rather early.”

I stood there, unable to think of what I could tell my parents. I knew there was no way on earth that I could ever go back and face Dr. Wozniak again after seeing him practically naked. And then the phone rang, my mother answered it, she kept saying, “What? What? Over and over again?” Then she said hold on, she said, “Susan, it’s Mrs. Wozniak said that you ran out of the office. What happened to make you run out of the office.” I said,”

I saw Dr. Wozniak in his jockeys. I can’t go back, and I won’t be able to look at him.” My mother repeated to Mrs. Wozniak what I said. My mother said to me, “ Mrs. Wozniak said, “You have to go back. They need you.”

My father sat at the kitchen table, looking at me. And then he said, “You’re going back tomorrow.” My mother picked up the phone again and said, “She’ll be there tomorrow first thing. And I did when my father told you that you had to do something. You didn’t argue, you did it, and there weren’t any ifs and or buts. My first day back was awkward, but I forgot about the whole incident after a while. Dr. Wozniak and I continued to work together for years.

In fact, there weren’t any further incidents. But, occasionally, something odd or weird would occur. One day a new patient came in to have her teeth examined. She was the first patient that morning. As soon as I saw her, I realized that the day was going to have a rough beginning. The reason was that this woman was highly unusual-looking. Dr. Wozniak had a hair-triggered laugh, as did I. Plus, laughing is contagious sometimes. As I was saying, I accompanied our new patient into the room with the X-ray machine. I put the plastic bib around her neck. I asked if there were any problems she wanted to address today or if this was a check-up. And as I was talking to her, I couldn’t help but notice that she was not your everyday middle-aged woman. She was quite tall, so much so that her long legs extended past the footrest on the dental chair. She had high heels on her feet, which were quite large. Her fingernails were extremely long and painted bright, bright red. This was long before fake nails or extension nails were available. They were so long that they curled under at their tips. Her make-up was exotic and almost appeared somewhat like a mask. Since her own features were hidden, she was dressed to her teeth. I suggested that she wear a dental bib so that her clothes wouldn’t be damaged. And she agreed. Her hair was jet black and was parted in the middle, and she had her hair in two braids that extended to her waist. She had silver earrings hanging from her ear lobes that touched her shoulder blades. The longer I gazed at her, the more I realized that Dr. Wozniak would have difficulty keeping a straight face.

I told her that the doctor would be with her in a few moments. And I went back to the desk in the office and continued taking out the dental files for the patients that were going to come that day and the next. The phone rang, and I answered it. It was a patient canceling their appointment for the next day, so I rescheduled it for the next opening we had available. I was still talking on the phone when Doctor Wozniak came through the office from his house and continued into the front exam room. I hung up the phone, and the next thing I knew, Dr. Wozniak came out of the exam room and motioned to me to follow him into the dark room where I developed the x-ray. He closed the door behind us. I thought, “What in the world?” And then he started laughing, I knew he was laughing at the woman’s appearance. And unfortunately, I found laughter contagious. And then we were both laughing. Finally, we regained control of ourselves, and Dr. Wozniak regained control of himself and went back into the exam room. I waited outside the room until he was finished, and then I took the xrays and developed them. At the same time, he was cleaning her teeth. I brought the exams into the room and returned to the office. Then, the woman came out of the room, and I scheduled another appointment for her, and she was on her way. After she left, Dr. Wozniak came out of the exam room and acted like nothing unusual had happened.

Dr. Wozniak came into the office one day while I was typing renewal notices. He asked if I would park my car on the side street rather than in front of his office and house. At first, I thought he was concerned that I was taking up a parking space that a patient might need to use. But, as I thought about it, I realized that he was never that busy at any one time. However, he was busy all day. And I finally realized that he was embarrassed by the car I drove. My father had given me and my twin sister, who worked not too far from me, his old car when he bought a newer one. He had handpainted the car. There was a chain holding the back trunk in place, and he had collaged several pictures from magazines or books on the trunk since it was lacking paint. It was colorful, to say the least. My sister and I were so happy to have a car at all. Otherwise, we would have to take the bus back and forth to the town where we lived. And that would mean we would have to change buses in Camden, NJ, which is not a good place for two young women to go alone. So, needless to say, I, for one, was more than happy with the car, regardless of how it looked.

But then, one day, Elaine Wharton, a girl that we went to high school with, stopped by our house as she saw us sitting on our front step. She told us that she had bought a new car. She had saved a downpayment and took out a loan that was going to pay it off in five years. We were astonished. We had no idea that we could do that. And before you knew it, my sister and I had each bought and took out a loan to pay for the new cars. I bought a 1970 yellow Volkswagon. And I can not tell you how much I came to love that car. And all the trips I took to Atlantic City, Wildwood, and all over South Jersey and Philadelphia. And eventually, I decided to move to Florida and then several years later to California.

One day Dr. Wozniak had a patient, whose name was Mrs. Pinto come in to have an extraction. I didn’t know she was having all her teeth extracted on the same day. As I was assisting Dr. Wozniak, I realized that he was extracting ALL her teeth, one after the other. As I stood there, I started feeling lightheaded, and every time he took out a tooth, I felt worse and worse. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the couch in Dr. Wozniak’s living room. Apparently, I had passed out. I’m not sure why I passed out since I had seen many extractions in the past. It seemed overwhelming to me to stand there and watch someone have all their teeth out at once. Apparently, Dr. Wozniak had to carry me while I was unconscious into his house. Yet, it is another experience I had to get over. I felt bad for Mrs. Pinto and Dr. Wozniak, but mostly for me since I was way past embarrassment to humiliation.

I worked for Dr. Wozniak for several more years until I decided that I would like to change jobs. The next job I took was working for Harry and Evie Ellis in Collingswood, NJ selling high-risk insurance. And that my friends I will write about in my next memoir story.

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Dora’s Day Goes From Bad to Worse

By Susan A. Culver

Dora wakes up slowly. She lifts her head, it feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. She looks from left to right. All she sees is what looks like the morning sky, it is somewhat overcast. She attempts to rise. And she realizes two things at once. First, she isn’t in her bedroom and hence not in her bed. And secondly, she isn’t alone. “What the hell is going on? Whose idea of a joke is this, goddammit.”

Dora isn’t a morning person. It’s the main reason she never married. She can’t bear the idea of waking up next to someone every morning and having to make small talk. She isn’t a cheerful or it’s a new beginning kind of girl. She’s more of a get the hell out of my face kind of girl.

And here she is, wherever the hell that is? Outside looking at the great beyond. She finally gets her sea legs and stands up gingerly. It almost feels like she is on a ship out at sea. And a storm is brewing. There is a slight swaying beneath her feet. She looks down. Unbelievably, she sees nothing, just more sky. “What the fuck is going on?” Dora curses like a sailor on leave when she’s frightened or angry or happy, or drunk, or just because she damn well feels like it, damn it. She was born and raised in South Philly, and she doesn’t give a good god damn what anyone thinks about her.

But right now, she fears the worse that she has finally gone off her rocker, lost her marbles, was living in crazy town. Take your pick.
She twists her head and then looks down again. Her head spins. Momentarily, she feels as if she might faint or stroke out. She hasn’t decided which she prefers. At her feet are two objects that for all the world look like giant eggs. They look like they weigh a good twenty pounds each. They are pale green with blue speckles. “Sweet muscular Jesus, I must have taken some bad-assed drugs last night. This is the worse hallucination I have ever had. “Wake up, wake up, you dumb shit.”

Dora squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head vigorously, painfully. Trying to wake up from this nightmare or bad trip or whatever the fuck it is. She has had enough. And then suddenly, she hears what can only be described as what sounds like the scream of someone being torn limb from limb. She fears that she is the one screaming.
She pries open her eyes with her fingertips. Because she can’t manage to make them open any other way. Momentarily, she is relieved because she doesn’t see any blood spurting out of her shoulder where her arm used to reside. She touches the top of her head and it appears to be intact. She looks down and both feet are attached to both legs. “What the flying fuck is going on here?”

And that is when she sees what is poking out of the egg-shaped object. The things that nightmares are made of. And without warning a sound so loud, so horrific that she can not even believe it exists. Not in the world she previously lived in or any other world man or woman has imagined. She covers her ears. She starts saying the Hail Mary, words she hasn’t uttered since she attended Catholic Grade School. God, anyone, somebody please help me. Wake me up, help me.

She looks down, surely her eyes must be deceiving her. But at her feet and rising out of the “egg” is what looks like a nightmarish bird. A bird from the Third Circle of Hell, a bird without feathers. A bird exposed to radiation. But, then “the bird” opens its monstrous beak, it displays a mouth full of teeth.

Teeth that perhaps once belonged to a Saber Tooth Tiger. And then just as she feels she might lose her mind. The other egg starts cracking and a beak starts to emerge. The screaming begins anew. It is so loud, she thinks her head might explode. That is the moment she realizes that the ungodly bellowing is coming not from the horrific babies. But something that is flying above her and baring down on what she now realizes is some kind of nest from hell.

The babies are screaming in unison. Surely, Dora’s eardrums will burst soon, and she will no longer have to endure the sound for another moment. The thing that was flying above her is now circling for a landing on the freaking nest. At that moment a thought pops into her mind. She tries to push it away. But she can’t, it remains. The thought is I’m the worm that these ungodly creatures are going to be given for their first meal.

The closer the gargantuan bird comes; the end of Dora’s life is becoming more imminent. Her life flashes before her eyes. Just like you always hear happens to people when their lives are about to end, as they jump off the roof, or the bridge or drown in a polluted lake. She sees her long-dead mother’s face looking down at her baby self. She sees her first day in school with Sister John Michael telling her to sit down and shut up. She sees herself playing with her friends in the backyard. The vision begins to fast forward, and her final thought is “What the fuck is happening?” Gimme another chance, please I can do better. And then the lights go out.

The light is bright, unbearably bright. There is a low humming noise. A sense of floating through the air. Dora feels a sense of release as if she was bound and now, she is free. She hopes she is in heaven or some version of heaven and not hell. Even though in her previous life she long ago gave up the notion of the hereafter. She hears a distant voice that she thinks must be God or Satan. “Open your eyes.”

Cora is afraid to open her eyes to eternity. “You can do it, Dora, open your eyes”. Cora opens her eyes. The bright light is still above her. She hears a high-pitched crying. She thinks, on no, I’m still in the nightmare. She forces her eyes open. “Try to sit up a little, Cora, and you can hold your baby. You had a rough time of it. But you are both fine, Congratulations.
Cora looks around and is speechless for a moment and then says shrilly,” What the flying fuck is this?”