Back in about 1970 I got braces. In about 1972 I was playing outside with some guys. One guy had a BB gun...we got to horsing around playing army man and he shot at a mailbox...I was in a ditch behind the mailbox...he missed and shot me in the mouth. Hit my front right two teeth...the front right of the two big teeth right in the middle of your mouth and the tooth just to the right of that one...I always called those teeth the eye teeth but could be wrong. Anyway, there they were broken off just above the band of the braces...swinging on the wire that went from band to band. Had the roots of those two teeth pulled because you can't, or couldn't back then, have them glued back together...probably still can't but there I was big two tooth hole in my teeth right in the front. Looked good! After the braces came off I got, in 74ish, a retainer like everyone else who had braces got when the braces came off except mine came equipped with the two teeth that got shot out.

My retainer with fake teeth went everywhere with me. Spit it out of my mouth right after I got them when at a UT football game...on the edge of the second deck. There they went...launched into the abyss and the last stop for them was going to be the lower deck with thousands of routy, drunken, stomping feet. I miraculously snatched them from thin air with my speedy right jab. Snatch...out of thin air...didn't even know I had caught them till I opened my right hand and looked...Schrödinger's false front teeth, if you will.

They continued the Wayne Fisher journey through life...drunken projectile vomits where the friends had to come fish them out because I couldn't see from too much drink...muff diving on women folk...I'll spare ya'll the gory details of that with exception of saying, I could suck various female body parts through the hole in my teeth and tickle them with my tongue which was always good for a laugh or a giggle.

For 50 years...up until three weeks ago when I got this bridge. Where Wayne went fake teeth retainer from 1974 was there. 50 YEARS! Retainer wires breaking off here and there till there were none...one tooth broke off twice...dento fixed it once, I fixed it once. 50 years.

I couldn't stand the thought of grinding two perfectly good teeth off on either side of the two tooth hole in order to hang a bridge from.

Well, 50 years was about all they could stand...something had to be done...new bridge.

But I severely digress with the harrowing tale of my two front teeth.

I experienced the EXACT same as you with the dento...I went for a period of time that was at least 20 years where I didn't go to the dento because my teeth didn't hurt...finally relented to The Woman and went in for a cleaning. No cavities as I well knew because I didn't get cavities. The lady that cleaned my teeth for the first time even commented on how clean they were...said, your teeth are much cleaner than peoples I see every 3 months. I should have run then because since, there's been nothing but cavity after cavity after cavity! I think they can see them sooner with their new technology because I can tell, and they'll say...this is a small one, they caught it early because he doesn't spend much time drilling.

I get suspicious of them finding all those cavities...then I'll think...The Woman has been going to him for 30 plus years...her cavity count is zero in those 30 plus years.

So, who knows.