LAST TIME I went to the dentist was in the early '90s, and that was to the free clinic in Berkeley, to refill a filling. I think I went once in the '80s, too. Every time I talk to someone my age who didn't go to the dentist for 10 or 15 years, then went, they wound up needing thousands of dollars of dental work.

I don't have insurance.

"Doesn't matter," everybody says. "You gotta go."

But I can't afford it. My teeth don't hurt. I brush at least twice a day. Cowboys didn't used to go to the dentist. Indians I don't think even flossed regularly.

GREEK CHORUS: This isn't the old West. We live twice as long now. The longer you wait, the worse it's going to be. And the more it will cost.

Not if I never go.

Then they kick me with the kicker, my sing-songy so-called friends: "You need healthy teeth," they say, "if you want to eat meat."

My appointment was at 2:30 on a Monday. All day Sunday I sat around the campfire gnawing on beef jerky and did not brush my teeth. I did not floss. I even forewent my usual toothpick. It kills me how people brush their teeth before going to the dentist to get their teeth cleaned. That's like having a sandwich before you go out to eat. MCMaHow you gonna get your money's worth?

Me, I don't want my dentist to want to see me ever again. I had a raw onion with coffee for breakfast, and then spent hours in front of the mirror, packing little pieces of parsley between whatever teeth weren't already packed with visible residual beef jerky fester. Then I worried that the parsley would neutralize my bad breath, so I picked it all out – very carefully, so as not to disturb the jerky – and replaced it with pickled cabbage.

Due to public transportation-related misfortunes, I arrived at Post and Mason an hour and 15 minutes early. I was reluctant to have lunch, for fear of ruining the effect, but another cup of coffee seemed like a good idea. Iced, with milk and sugar. And a straw.

So I sat against the wall in a little coffeehouse on that corner, trying to write beautiful poetry only shaking too hard. You know how you get so nervous sometimes you can almost fall asleep? Like your body goes, all right, enough is enough. Well, I was just about there, by 2:00. I'd long since set aside my pen and started to read. Rilke. My eyelids were getting heavy. By 2:10 I was so tired that I could actually imagine surviving my first trip to the dentist's chair in over 12 years.

And, as if on cue, the Public Works Department decided there would be no better time than the present, 2:10 p.m., Monday, May 17, 2004, to start tearing up the sidewalk at Mason and Post. They fired up one of those soothing sidewalk-cutting cement saws and got a jackhammer going at the same time – I kid you not. It took the rest of my 20-minute wait for me to slide back down from the ceiling into my seat.

But I have to hand it to Dr. Imagawa. I'm not a dentist reviewer, but this guy is the guy. He started talking the moment I got into his office, and he never stopped. Dentists get good I guess at one-sided conversations, if they talk at all. This one does, and if you like your politics to lean to the left, which – if you're reading this paper ...

He'd just seen The Fog of War on video and was rapping anti-McNamara, Vietnam War this, Iraq that, Rumsfeld, Agent Orange, Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories ... all the right stuff, in other words, to keep your mind away from the fact that he's meanwhile digging into your teeth and gums with pointy metal instruments.

And – and – when all was done and said, there was nothing wrong with my teeth, according to Dr. Imagawa! He did want to see me again – in November, for a six-month routine cleaning!

Well, we'll see about that.

In the meantime, I did find a restaurant down there around Union Square to tell you about: Bangkok Noodles. Not the new one, down the block at 110 Powell, but the original, at 156, where you can sit at the counter and watch the noodle lady masterfully assembling big bowls of great soup (duck noodle, of course, for me – $5.75) out of enormous cauldrons of gurgling broths, bins of five different kinds of noodles, all kinds of meat and seafood, and plenty of green stuff to get stuck between your teeth in case you want to go before the dentist next time.

Bangkok Noodles. 156 Powell (at Ellis), S.F. (415) 397-2199. Daily, 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.