Today I went to the dentist to get a filling. My regular dentist, who owned the dental clinic, retired earlier this year and I have had a string of dentists since then working on my rather poor teeth. This one was named Dr. Yuri. I recognized this as sounding Russian, so I asked him if he was Russian. "No," he said, "Ukrainian." I told him I was studying Russian. "That's great. It's a wonderful language." During this snippet of conversation, Dr. Yuri was giving me a shot of local anesthesia and I was getting goofy from nitrous oxide. "Yeah, it's really hard though. I learned pronunciation and spelling right away---my cursive is great. But my grammar...it's really slow going.""Why did you want to learn Russian?' "Well, you know, I'm a cold war kid [I doubt he is, since he didn't have a gray hair on his head], and I always was curious about the culture, but we could never find out about the culture, and then I got to know a bunch of Soviets who emigrated here..."
"Could you open your mouth for me?" I did, as wide as I could. "Hmmm," he said, "I think you're going to need to use a block," which turned out to be a large piece of rubber that went in my mouth on the opposite side of my jaw than the one on which he was working. Now my mouth was fixed in an incredibly wide open state.
"Is that ok?" he asked.
I answered "Ah-hah..." which is what "Mmm-hmm" sounds like if your mouth is stretched as wide as an alligator's. And then he started to work. This is what I imagine he was thinking:
"Could you open your mouth for me?" I did, as wide as I could. "Hmmm," he said, "I think you're going to need to use a block," which turned out to be a large piece of rubber that went in my mouth on the opposite side of my jaw than the one on which he was working. Now my mouth was fixed in an incredibly wide open state.
"Is that ok?" he asked.
I answered "Ah-hah..." which is what "Mmm-hmm" sounds like if your mouth is stretched as wide as an alligator's. And then he started to work. This is what I imagine he was thinking:
