YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 342, 1 May 1928, Page 4

YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

1 Each Tuesday afternoon a comer will be reserved for original contribu- ! tions of genera] interest to women* I folk. The subject matter is for you to choose —whatever topic interests ! you may also be of interest or amusement to others, whether it be about your hobbies, experiences, or merely amusing muslngs about the ordinaryround of the day. A book prize is offered weekly for the best effort, which should be brief, plainly written, and sent to “Your Club and Mine,'* The Sun, Auckland. This week the prize has been given to Miss K. M. Knight for the following article: AT THE DENTIST’S EXPERIMENTS IN PSYCHOLOGY ! Of recent years I have had two teeth out. Needless to say they were both aching ones, for I belong to that class of person who never lias a tooth out unless it is aching. X got rather a dirty trick on to the second tooth, but the first one got a dirty one on to me, for when it first began to ache I used to dream at night of steep brass stairs, and wake up saying, “Uug . . . uh . . .ug!" and plan all day how I could run into a strange dentist’s the next day and have the tooth out. I had a kind of an idea that I would not mind a strange dentist, particularly if he were sympathetic. I would go and sit in his chair. “Just have a look at my mouth, will you, please? Yes, right at the back. ’Em. Til ’ou 'ake it out ’ile I ’ait? Yes, please. Painless.” And I would pay him three-and-six, and run away highly pleased with myself. But somehow this never happened. If by any chance I stumbled across any dentist’s, I always crossed the road rapidly. Even if I called to see friends who had brass doorsteps, I rushed away without ringing the doorbell, for I had a very bad complex. Psychologists will know what I felt. They will understand what I felt about brass steps. . . . One night a climax came. I had a dream. I thought that I was swimming in a warm, slimy pool, with weeds lazily floating beside me on the oily surface of the water. There was sunshine all round me, and tropical beauty in the overhanging plant-life. ; Into tl is bliss came the pleasant voice of a dentist. “Open wide ... Ah, that's better . .” And I could feel my mouth opening about eighteen inches. “Head a little more to the light . . .” said the voice, caressingly, as X slowly turned my head. “.Now! Be a sensible little crocodile ... I am going to begin. Only ninetyfive to come out . . .” I screamed, and disappeared into the depths of the stream. In other words I came bumping into the bed, panting and gasping. I, a crocodile, with 95 teeth to come out? It made the one little tooth seem child’s play. I would master my fear of brass steps, and go that very day and have it out. THE SYMPATHETIC MAN But I was at least spared the ordeal of steps. I was passing through a village about ten miles out of the city when I spied a dentist’s sign outside a pretty little house. There was a garden, and quite a nice-looking man hoeing round asters. He looked the kind of man who would understand; who would be sympathetic, and kind, and tender, and not under-estimate the horror of having a tooth out. “Are you a dentist?” I asked a bit shakily. “Yes,” he replied. “Are you a patient?” “No. And heaven forbid that anyone should ever call me one. But I want a tooth out. AT ONCE. Understand? One tooth, at once. See?” “Yes,” he said, looking into my eyes as dentists do. “Bo you want gas. or painless?” “Painless,” I said quickly. I had a feeling that I could not trust a dentist to give me gas, lest I might become a crocodile again, and the wretched man take out 95 teeth. “Oh!” I cried, feeling some of the horror returning. “Can’t you hurry up? Come inside. Put a little feeder under my chin, inject your deadening drug, and take out my tooth before 1 run away.” We went in. He stood looking into my face for some time, and then lie looked at the tooth. “You should have gas for this one,” • he said darkly. Then he crossed to the window. I felt rising in me a j strange fear, like a forbidding. His j voice was so like the voice of the man ; in the dream. The swaying trees out- i side the window reminded me of the j tropical foliage of that awful river. In I one moment, I thought, I shall get up • and run. Why does he not start? ! Then he turned slowly to the nurse and said: “Nurse, I think ninety-five should come out . . .” I got up. I tore off the little bib. “I—l can t have the tooth out today,” I said. “It has stopped aching. I’ll come back in the morning.” I rushed into the car and drove off at a over-the-speed limit rate. Tearing over the concrete I realised what a fool I had been. The man looked so kind, too, and he would not know that I had dreamed a silly dream. Xle was probably only referring to a diseased plant in his garden, or to an aster that had red-spider. And yet I rushed off like that: I can’t explain it, but psychologists will know what 1 felt. . . . THE PRACTICAL MAN I was almost myself when I reached j town. I went straight to my old dent- . ist, and walked up the brass steps. “Harold,” I said meekly, “I want a j tooth out. It has given me a terrible i lot of trouble. Bon’t be long about it. or I may get up and run away. And don’t want to give me gas, will you, because I hate having gas.” “Right,” said the practical Harold. “Just open your mouth, and restrain for two minutes your great desire to talk. And sit still. If you bang round I will knock your head off.” I felt better straight away. This was what I needed. There was no nonsense in Harold. • Open wide,” he said. “That s the j

idea. Keep your tongue out of (he way, or I’ll give it a dose of dope. I never can understand folks who make such a fuss about having a tooth out. It is simply nothing at all. Just wait two minutes, will you, and the tooth will be ready. Can you feci it now?” He tried it, and I felt nothing. “Open wide again, then.” he advised: and I open -d wide. The tooth came out as easily as one takes off an old shoe. “Good business.” he said. “You are such a sensible person. You make no fuss.” Guiltily I agreed with him, while I thought of the man not more than ten miles away who was, perhaps, still, wondering if he had had a narrow' esepe from a runaway inmate of the asylum. . . . TRIUMPH “Of course,” I temporised, “some, people can’t help being a little bit nervy. I can understand a man’s being afraid of the dentist’s. Can’t you?” "Not if he is in his right mind.” porary gaps in their sanity," I said. “Temporary gaps in their fiddlesticks,” said the practical Harold. "The dentist bogey is simply absurd. What is there in having a tooth out?” "Nothing—when you are there- But it’s the getting there. It’s the creeping up the stairs and waiting in the waiting-room: the smell of the place, and never knowing when you are going to be called. It is not having the tooth out that matters a hang.” "Then why ever worry?” “Can’t explain. But psychologist® would be able to tell you." “Fiddlesticks,” said Harold. “Toil must be developing the artistic temperament. Have you any more bad teeth, by the way?" I had one that had threatened. ' You had better have a look,” I said, for once in the torture-chair I was as brave as a lion. And if I could have a tooth out before it ached, so much the better. It would be a beauty to get on to the beastly thing. . “There is one," Harold discovered* “Shall I take it out?” "Yes, please.” And out it came. Harold walked with me to the brassplated door. “Of all the sensible patients I e\er had. you are the most sensible. h© said. "Going to the carnival on Saturday ?" _ . I nodded. I smiled. I felt ... I *el- . . . well, psychologists will know what I felt, for I had had two teeth out when I had gone to have only one, and the beastly business was over. K. M. KNIGHT. Tea-stains on a table-cloth can be weakened when quite fresh by letting the cloth soak in warm water. Lemon - juice will further bleach before the cloth goes to the wash. When the covers on children s s=;orT books become very soiled and torn, pieces of gay-coloured cretonnes of dress materials will cover the books, and will last much longer.