dental done

by Ernest Mann

I finally did it! I got my teeth replaced. Friday, Feb. 21, 1992, I left Minneapolis at about 7 a.m. in my Toyota Tercel, with my squirrel trap suit case (with the squirrel pee washed out) and started rolling on down Interstate 35 towards Laredo, Texas. The roads were fine. I made good time. I stayed in cheap
motels at night and left at about 4 a.m. each morning.
I arrived in Laredo in the forenoon on Sunday. Stopped at the Johnson Insurance Company and inquired about auto insurance that would enable me to cross the border into Mexico. They told me there was a new law that all Americans would have to have "full" coverage and all their insurance papers with them. I only have liability insurance so I figured I couldn't go to Monterrey as I had planned. Then I had my first vision of having to turn my car around and go home. Then I thought of asking him if there was any way around this. He said yes. I could use his phone and call my insurance agent and get full coverage and have it "faxed" to me on their fax machine. Then I could cross the border.

50-Mile Limit
Then he told me that I couldn't travel more than 50 miles from the border with that American Insurance. (Then I had another vision of having to turn around and go home.) I would have to buy Mexican Insurance to go the 150 miles to Monterrey. So, I asked him how much that would cost. He figured out three different policies for me. The cheapest coverage which included a lawyer would have been $61.46 for one week. For a month it would be $149.89. For two months it would be $240.42. I then got a much more clear vision of turning my car around and going home.
I told them I would have to think this over. Then an American couple a little younger than me came in to buy insurance. They looked very familiar. But I just couldn't place them. They didn't seem to notice me as they were busy buying insurance. Finally, as I was about to depart, they came over and said "Hello." I asked them where we knew each other. They used to run the cafe in Randall, Minn., where she used to make the best pie in the state. We had a nice talk and I drove away and found a cafe to have my late breakfast. I didn't get much thinking done in the cafe so I parked near the central plaza and laid back in my reclined seat and covered my eyes and did some hard thinking. The vision was by now getting very solid in my mind of giving up and heading back home.
I tried to think of any alternatives there might be, so that I could get my teeth replaced. One alternative which seemed quite reasonable was to store my car here in Laredo, Texas and take a bus to Monterrey. I recalled a gas station stop, south of San Antonio, where I had asked the cashier if it would be cheaper to get my dental work done in Monterrey or in Nuevo Laredo. She had said it would be cheaper in Nuevo Laredo. I didn't believe this could be.
Anyway, the thought popped into my mind that I should park my car and walk across the bridge and just check things out as long as I'm here and then re-think the whole thing. So I asked a parking lot attendant how much he would charge if I left my car for a month. He said a straight $5 per day. I decided to look for a lot nearer the bridge. I found a huge free public parking lot next to the bridge. Hundreds of cars. So I parked and walked across the bridge. No guards. But on the Mexican side I had to pay 25 cents to get through the turnstile. How marvelously easy. (I noticed I had a headache. I never get headaches. So I tried relaxing it. That helped a little.)

Main Drag
In a few steps I was on the main drag of tourist haven. Within a block a ragged sign said Dentist and pointed to the right. I followed that street for three or four blocks and couldn't find an office. So I figured I didn't read the sign carefully enough and I headed back to it. I barely got there and a young man came up to me and asked in excellent English if I wanted to find a doctor or what did I seek. I said a Dentist. He said he knew an excellent one. This was Sunday, mind you, so I didn't expect to find one open until the next day. But he took me to one that was open. He said the examination would be free. The dentist did not have expensive equipment, but it looked like it would do the job. He wanted $15 per tooth to pull all 15 of my teeth. That is cheap per tooth but is a lot of money in total. He said he could pull all the teeth and make false teeth for me and have them in my mouth late that afternoon. That was amazing.
Then I asked what it would cost for partial plates for both upper and lower to fill in all the gaps, 5 in upper and 8 in lower jaw. He said that would be $300 total for both plates including teeth cleaning (which I needed), and he would put them in later that afternoon. SOLD! I said. So he made the molds he needed and asked for half payment in advance and sent me off for two hours. Jimmy, my guide, waited around in the office with me for over an hour and helped me with my very limited Spanish. He was a great help. When we left I tried to get him to tell me what I owed him. He said it was up to me. So I said how about $5. He said how about $20. I said how about $10. He said OK and we parted friends. I don't know if I overpaid, but I was happy with the Dentist, so what the Hell. I was dressed very straight with a three-piece suit that was probably 20 years behind the style, so he probably figured I wasn't rich. Later I noticed all the other tourists had only sport shirts and trousers.
I walked around the market area for a while and couldn't see anything I wanted to buy, except four packs of Delicados cigarettes (that tobacco has the fragrance of a fine cigar) (30 cents/pack) and four packs of their superior matches which almost explode when you strike them. (I noticed I still had a headache, so I tried harder to relax that part of my head. That helped a little.) I found an outside table area in the market and ordered a beer and smoked a few cigarettes and people-watched for a while and soon it was time to get my teeth.
I had to wait a little at the dentist's for the teeth to arrive and watched their TV. It had wrestling mostly and at first, it was frightening, it was so cruel. But later I could see they were all pulling their punches and no one was really getting hurt. They were all expert stunt men. But the dentist thought it was all for real. The teeth came and they had to re-adjust the little clamps that hold the plates to the real teeth. They looked good and felt good. Now my gums are quite tender. I expect it will take a while to get them toughened up to stand the impact of chewing again.

The Old Grind
It feels so good to be able to grind my food with my back teeth again and is much faster than trying to do it with only two front teeth that matched. I'm sure glad I didn't have them all pulled and have to suffer while my gums healed, while I'm breaking in a new set of false teeth.
Crossing the bridge (border) back into USA, I had to pay 50 cents and was asked what country I was born in. They didn't even ask for my driver's license this time.
With my new plates in my mouth I stopped at a fast chicken place and ate two pieces of chicken. I could grind ok but my gums were pretty tender. Then I got back into my car and headed home late Sunday afternoon. I then took more time to work on relaxing my head in the area of the pain. This reduced it to almost nothing. That night in a motel I watched TV for an hour or so and I didn't notice the headache by the time I went to bed. And it didn't come back the next day. I figured all that frustrated thinking in the car is what caused it.
When I felt almost totally defeated, I think is when it must have started. I must have shorted out something in that thinking process?
By the time I arrived in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 11:30 a.m. my gums were already getting toughened up so that my eating was getting to be more pleasurable. It was a hard drive, but I stopped each night at a motel so it wasn't as bad as most of my trips. It was 1420 miles each way. It cost me $78.48 for gas (round trip) and $94.94 for motels. I lucked out on good weather both ways.
I finally have got over my last hurdle that has kept me from becoming my Gypsy of the Sea fantasy. I have been trying to get this tooth problem cleared away for three years, but things just never fit together to make it happen until now. Wow! What a relief!