Hello, old friend. 

Oh no.

No no no no no.

It hasn’t happened in a few years, but there’s no denying it.

I have a toothache. Actually, I think I may have two. Or more? I don’t know. I’m not a dentist or an X-ray machine.

I have a long, complicated history with dentist offices. I find anticipating the dentist office stressful in the run-up. It’s time out of my busy day, it’s generally expensive, and the slow drip of bad news is a real turnoff.

Then again, given my less than healthful diet my first 30 or so years of life, I’ve spent a LOT of time reclined in those chairs, among the most comfortable in the world. Or maybe not — I wouldn’t know because I don’t own a recliner. Were it not for the bright lights and need to hold my mouth open, I could easily doze off in the chairs at the dentist office.

The toothache started last week. It’s sensitive top and bottom when I chew, and hot and cold sensitive on the bottom. These teeth no doubt have names and numbers that I will soon be hearing dental experts toss back and forth over my head (literally) when I go to my dentist appointment later this week.

It seems like dental problems every few to several years is a pretty reliable constant in my life, which would not surprise you if you ate like I did growing up. I was a picky eater, but I never met a junk food I didn’t fall in love with.

My childhood and adolescence spanned the 1970s and ‘80s, a time when parents like mine too often surrendered their expertise, trusting that the highly processed food they let their kids eat was fine.

OK, I did eat some quasi-healthy meals: When my dad wasn’t on duty at the fire station, he made the same kinds of foods he cooked there: meatloaf and mashed potatoes, spaghetti and meat sauce, beef stew, pork chops and the like. What few veggies I ate generally came out of a can.

Left to my own devices I opted for cereals, white bread and potato chips. It’s a wonder I grew into an adult-sized body. Those vitamins they sprayed on my Fruit Loops, Pop Tarts and Lucky Charms must have really worked. I could eat my chief source of protein, Steak-umms, till I made myself sick. Stouffer’s French bread pizza was as exotic as my diet got. Our cupboard was always stocked with several brands of cookie.

And at every dentist visit, it was never a question of whether I’d have cavities, but rather how many.

The correlation between the state of my teeth and the holes in my teeth didn’t seem to bother anyone. Hey, only two cavities this time? Let’s celebrate with donuts!

To boot, I was a hasty brusher, and I hated flossing because it’s so boring and gunky. My poor teeth never stood a chance.

When I went to a new dentist at 26, “Well, David, you’ve benefited from a lot of excellent dental care” as he gazed wonderingly at my X-rays. Comforting words, on the one hand, embarrassing on the other.

I have a mouth full of crowns and fillings. I have had at least one, maybe two, root canals. At my current dentist, they usually put my X-rays up on a screen directly in front of me, like the world’s absolute worst desktop photo, so I can see all my bad choices embodied in the opaque gadgetry of my teeth.

Fortunately, I married an excellent cook. She ate healthy, didn’t hate chopping veggies and, best of all, had no interest in what passed for edible in my world. But I still got my caffeine fixes from regular Cokes until my mid-30s.

Thanks to stumbling on a certain fad diet book in 2003, I began eschewing Cokes and most other sugar save for the occasional COCC cookie from Sparrow Bakery or a couple of scoops of ice cream.

I began getting things a little more right, in regard to my health and teeth, but here’s the problem: I only really take good care of my teeth when the hygienist scolds me. I am afraid to think what that says about me.

I remember 20 years ago getting nothing but bad news at a dental cleaning, then stepping up my game greatly over the next six months. I still wistfully think about the subsequent visit, when the hygienist told me my teeth looked perfect and “You’re doing everything right!”

It’s been that see-saw pattern ever since. When I went to my six-month appointment a little under a year ago, it was the cleaning where they first take some kind of gumline measurements and read off numbers to an interested party (not me). I had a few too many higher numbers, which from the lecture I received after, I know is bad. I was told about how these numbers can lead to gum disease.

So the early part of the years, I flossed more frequently and brushed BOTH sides of my teeth more diligently than perhaps ever in my life. When I went to my last appointment, I marched in and proudly plopped down in the closest thing I have to a La-Z-Boy in my life, and long story short, listened rhapsodically to the compliments from a new-to-me hygienist.

Of course, I walked right out and just completely half-assed it in terms of flossing and brushing this summer, and now look what I have: a toothache, or more accurately, teethaches.

It’s a real shame I lack the maturity and conviction to take care of my teeth when nobody is actively scolding me. They should probably jot that down in my file because positive feedback set me back, while guilt trips have done wonders for my teeth.