I go to a dental practice which is quick to adopt the most up to date treatments. On a previous visit I was advised that “best practice” for dental hygiene was to brush with toothpaste and not rinse! That’s right, no rinse and spit, just generally harass the nasty old teeth bacteria with a toothbrush and let the magic ingredients in the toothpaste do their best practice practising. As I went for my most recent dental cut and polish, I wondered what new dental procedure was now top of the list, backed up by extensive peer reviewed studies.
“I’ve reversed my treatment sequence” said the dental hygienist. “I’m going to polish your teeth first before I scrape off the calculus”. OK, step reversal. Thinking outside the box. Backward planning. Cool.
But what was this about calculus? This was the first I’d heard of calculus since school and university mathematics classes. Calculus has to do with rates of change of things, as far as I can remember, though it could be something else entirely different. Had my university calculus slipped down out of my brain (as so many things have done), and ended up in my mouth before depositing itself on my teeth? As the rate of change of my brain is now negative, had the calculus become bored and emigrated to greener pastures, so to speak?
But as it turns out, the calculus my hygienist was referring to is an up-to-date name for tartar, a substance which I am more familiar with and which has a rich history and some surprising applications.
Cream of tartar, which I am pretty sure is high quality, refined tartar, is an endlessly useful substance. For one thing, it stabilizes whipped cream so that it doesn’t slump into a white slop that dribbles off your cake and onto the floor. To quote masterclass.com, “Cream of tartar helps make cakes rise, meringues hold their shape, creams fluff and pots and pans gleam like new”. Cream of tartar is clearly a very useful product, yet here it was growing on my own teeth like expensive oysters growing on slimy old rocks in some salty estuary. What a waste.
But let’s get back to my new dental clean-up procedure of polishing teeth before scraping off the tartar. This started me thinking.
I had always assumed, that like cleaning a car, the polishing step came last. But in this age of disruption and innovation, why not shake up dental hygiene and do the last step first? Why not catch my tooth tartar napping, lull it into a false sense of security with a quick brush and polish and then, just when it seemed the teeth clean-up was finished, launch into an abrasive counter-attack? I’m sure that’s the thinking behind this new dental procedure.
The history of tartar is also enlightening when it comes to teeth. “Tartars” is another name for the Golden Horde*, a warring people of the 13th century from Central Asia, led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Bat Khan, who proved extraordinarily difficult to defeat and control. My teeth tartar is just the same. It keeps on coming back, time and time again, like a tenacious teeth horde. Surprise tactics are needed to defeat it. Why not launch an out-of-the-blue rear guard action and catch the dental descendants of Genghis Khan napping using the radical new regime promoted by my hygienist of “last things first” ?
Then I realised that I may have stumbled upon a new unifying theory of everything, which will sweep the world like the Golden Horde of the 13th century.
Do the last things first. Think about it.
When applied to cooking, this would mean eating the ingredients first before cooking them. Everyone knows that cake ingredients straight from the mixing bowl taste far better than a baked cake from the oven. See – my theory is gaining momentum.
Sport is another area that could do with a serious rescheduling of the steps involved. Why not play the match first and then do the physical training later? The resulting injuries would be of enormous benefit to physiotherapists, doctors and medical equipment suppliers, all of whom have been struggling with the business downturn caused by the pandemic and need a boost in income.
Over the last few years I have been noticing an interesting application of the “last things first” principle on the freeway. These days, drivers commonly swerve across to the next lane, then flash their indicator and then look around them. The conventional order for lane changing used to be look around, indicate and only then change lanes. But in the new world order, reversing the sequence is disruptive, innovative and challenges conventional wisdom and therefore must be better. I was puzzled as to why the disruptive lane changers bothered to indicate or look around after the lane changing event. But in a eureka moment I realised that the flashing indicator was a kind of triumphant fist pump after a difficult sporting achievement like scoring a goal in football. Looking around after the lane swerve was for bragging purposes later on, to check that the manoeuvre had produced an impressive nose to tail pile-up behind the lane changer or at least some smoking brakes as drivers tried desperately to avoid a smash.
Do the last things first. It could revolutionize your life. Or ruin it.
© Geoff Milton 2020
* ”Golden Horde” Wikipedia
