This is an ode to a piece of string, waxed or unwaxed. Flossing is my life. Don't snicker, tartar tooth. If you knew what I know, and soon you will, you would hop off your StairMaster, pour out the Merlot and sell the country place. You would take your mental health in your own two hands, a few inches apart, and floss your troubles away.

Like so many great discoveries, this one was accidental. I was seeking dental -- not mental -- health, when I first stumbled into the offices of Dr. Mark. As you may remember from previous assaults on your reading tolerance, my gums were so bad my teeth were aching to be pulled. Dr. Mark ordered his secretary, Gail, to clear every Monday morning for me forever, to solicit sealed bids from periodontists and to reschedule his European vacation. As a gold crown card customer, I was given his car and boat phone numbers. The lead hygienist, Marsha, laid out what looked like a jackhammer and a backhoe to scrape my teeth.

I canceled my own vacation, opened my mouth and closed my eyes. The headset of a cassette player was slipped on. I picked Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" to cover any crevices the Novocain wouldn't fill.

Later there was a conference. The upper right corner of my mouth, with bone loss, gum pockets and overfilled teeth, would always be a dangerous frontier. Dr. Mark planned a campaign, Operation Dental Storm: After I recovered from this invasion, he would pull at least one molar and oversee gum surgery. Meanwhile, I would brush, massage my gums and floss at home in preparation.

Floss? I had heard of that. It seemed, well, boring, time-consuming, a little messy. Marsha, cool, deft, instructed me in cat's cradle motions I felt I would never master. "I have to floss every tooth every night?" I whined.

Marsha smiled slyly. "Of course not. Only floss the teeth you want to keep."

On the way out, I asked Dr. Mark if he thought I could floss my way back to dental health and avoid surgery. His smile, I thought, was patronizing. "Anything is possible," he said.

I took that as a challenge. The thought of gum surgery gave me stress. I'm an oral guy: Talk too much, eat too much. Any mention of flaps or sutures made my knees freeze and my liver quiver. I have been chopped and gutted in terrible places, but somehow being cut inside my mouth seemed more than even Springsteen could cover.

Her muffled words hit me as a drill hits dentin: "This isn't a short-term competition. It's for the rest of your life."

I determined to become a flossing fool. Every night, every tooth, even if it gave me carpal tunnel syndrome. I was too vigorous at first, making my gums bleed, trying too hard. Then I remembered Marsha's telling me the purpose was merely to skim off the plaque before it hardened. Flossing requires finesse. I thought of that old smoothie, Fred Astaire, dancing on the enamel steps of my teeth; of Muhammad Ali, flossing like a butterfly; of Emily Dickinson, containing the thumping ache in my roots in tiptoe words. I would floss with subtle style. My fingers twirled the string and stretched and looped it to Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain."

When I returned to Dr. Mark six weeks later, he was unable to mask his surprise. "Looks better." He peered closer. "You really did a job in there. You actually flossed every night?"

"I may turn pro. So what do you think?"

"We'll see. We may just be able to do nothing for a while."

I danced home. It was early afternoon, but I gave myself a celebratory floss. Get that string in there, Big Bob, twist the wrist, flick the fingers, way to go! I had to travel on business the next week, and with one thing and another I missed a night and then two. I felt a little tense about it. I ran my tongue over my teeth and imagined barnacles. When I got back home, I instituted twice-a-day sessions and made sure every tooth got a backhand roll scrape as well as a forehand pull.

Marsha's eyes bugged out when I returned to her a month later. "Best you've ever seen?" I wheedled. "All Star? Am I ready for the Flossing Olympics?"

Usually laconic, Marsha pulled down her mask, smiled and said, "You get a gold star." The mask snapped back up, and she began to scrape. Her muffled words hit me as a drill hits dentin: "This isn't a short-term competition. It's for the rest of your life."

Comeuppance worthy of a Floss Dominatrix! I'd been letting the string wrap me around its finger and forgetting what this was all about. I went home with a new attitude.

That night I recalled teenaged, lawnmowing summers when I'd kept my sanity by cutting crazy patterns in the grass. The time passed more quickly. I wasn't so ragged at the end of the lawn; sometimes I even felt refreshed. So one night I'd floss the top of my mouth first, the next night the bottom. Sometimes front first, sometimes back. I kept myself and that sneaky plaque guessing for months. Some nights I actually felt as if I were 14 again, with the August sun cooking my shoulders and my nostrils twitching with the tingly smell of green. In the rest of my life cancer still loomed, cash still ebbed and friends waited for kidneys and new drugs, but as long as I had that piece of string in my hands, I had a grip on something. I was more likely to pass up the red wine, the lotus position or the third mile than my floss. I wasn't so ragged at the end of the day; sometimes I even woke up refreshed.

Last week Dr. Mark said I've probably saved the upper rear teeth for now, but gum surgery remains unavoidable.

Just do it, I said. I set the date with Gail, flashed Marsha the string salute -- forefingers overhead, a few inches apart, as if scraping the Great Mouth in the Sky -- and went home to floss for my life.

-- Robert Lipsyte, a former sports and city columnist for the New York Times, has written more than 20 novels and non-fiction books. He was a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

First published August 1, 2000
Last updated February 11, 2008
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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