Saturday, October 23, 2004

It's times like these I wish I had a dentist friend...

Tonight at the gym (after a week away), I asked, in my always bloodied but unbowing Chinese, if they had replaced a piece of equipment I'd turned in when I found it broken a few months ago. Nope. As it was near closing time, some of the lights were off and we were talking in semi-darkness. When the guy looked me square in the face to speak, I noticed something in his upper row of teeth. One tooth was noticeably less shiny, more opaque even, than the rest. I was as sure as a green youth like me can be that one of his teeth was a fake. I doubt it was just a shadow since the teeth on both sides of it were uniformly reflective and natural-looking.

This led me to wonder: assuming his tooth was a fake, what about enamel makes it shine like it does, and did? (Or maybe all his teeth are fake and enamel looks dull!)

Calling dental aficionados?

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