My Life as a Dental Cabinet

(Editor Note: Cleaning out a house and 'purging' as we all must sometimes, brings up memories and imaginings. While helping out a friend in the moving process, this charming dental cabinet of many lives, sparked many a memory. I couldn't help but imagine...)

I spent my early life, in the nineteen thirties, in a dentist’s office in France where I stored essential clinical items, like surgical instruments, elevators, forceps, handpieces, diagnostic tools (mirrors, explorers), composite, cements, and impression materials. I was designed for efficiency and organization and could optimize workflow by holding frequently used items within arm's reach of the dental chair. I felt needed and useful in those days, but I admit to being affected by the daily strain of the nervous patients, their white knuckled fingers gripping the chair (once a child sat with a rabbit foot clutched tightly in his small fingers), watching the needles administering Novocain, the mask with the gas…oh how some patients jabbered on with that! The noise of the drill started to bother me.  

Dr. Boule was a very kind and skilled man, handsome too. I watched him age and I observed over time a succession of nurses and assistants, some bright and sunny as a sunflower, others like a dark shadow I was not keen to witness. The French dentist never suffered their moods for long; they were quickly dismissed. Dr. Boule knew the value of a positive presence in his practice, he liked a comfortable office atmosphere for his patients. By the time he retired, we’d been sharing an office for thirty years. The new dentist brought in his own office furniture, all of which was bright and shiny. I saw that I’d outlived my usefulness when I saw the new cabinets. I had to put two and two together. Where would I end up?  Muddled years followed. I was packed up and shipped to the USA. How odd that I ended up spending decades stored in a dirty old barn in upstate New York. I never got used to the bats at night. Why was I there? My sense of usefulness dwindled. I was constantly shuffled further back into the piles of rickety farm tables, leaning bookcases, wagons, wheelbarrows, old stoves, rusty bicycles, and boxes of fabric that were a treat for burrowing rodents.

But one day, someone chose me! I was excited to be loaded into the back of a Honda and taken to a place called Woodstock, which I learned was kind of a well-known place. In my new space, a vintage shoppe, I was cleaned up and outfitted with glass shelves in my upper self (I’d missed those shelves) and a broad black shelf underneath that, though I would’ve preferred a glass shelf there, the way I used to have. I sat in a small kitchen behind tall bookcases that partitioned off the shoppe where she sold vintage clothes and books and jewelry. I held kitchen spices up top, and utensils down below. She used the wide shelf for a popcorn maker and mugs for hot cider on evenings of live performances, small audiences that drifted in to enjoy singing and acoustic folk music. I loved those nights.

But before too long, she left her shoppe and moved into a house with her man friend. I was painted a rusty red color, leftover paint when she painted the entire kitchen. It covered up my rust spots, so that was good. Special glasses on my shelves and large bowls stored below. That place was quite a party spot! My favorites were the Halloween parties. I got to be the backdrop for photos of guests, like the beautiful Geisha, the bloody zombie queen, a flapper, and a cowboy.

On my next move (with her, not him) I ended up in her small studio, able once again to be useful and reliable, as I held paints, brushes, sketch books and such. The studio was a lovely place, alternately tranquil or blasting with rock and roll as she painted. It was fun. And versatile. At Christmas time, she cleaned it all up and set up a long table for Christmas dinner, since her family was coming and it was the largest room in the apartment. I was proud to be decorated with colored twinkling lights and used to hold the tins of Christmas cookies.  

I would have liked to be there longer than those seven years, but she couldn’t take me with her when she moved again. She found me a good home with a friend who’d just bought a house further upstate, in a two hundred year old farmhouse. That was a good long run, twenty two years, peaceful and cared for; my bottom cabinet became a wine rack, a collection of cute miniatures on my glass shelves. Until my good fortune took a turn. My owner was selling the house and moving back to her apartment in NYC. No room for me. I was emptied out. I was forlorn, useless. I didn’t like that feeling. She and her friend, the artist who had given me to her, tried to find a home for me. Antique dealers came and looked me over. Not interested. Time was running out. Then, bingo! They showed my picture to a young woman named Robin who owned a vintage store called Faerydale. She liked me! She and her husband came to pick me up, he was so strong, he lifted me all by himself, which, being iron, is not an easy task. Such a nice young couple they were, he called her “my love” when he called out to her. She talked softly and had a peaceful way about her; her long brown, flowy hair had sparkles in it. She wouldn't put me in the shop for sale, she said. She’s not going to part with me. She talked about how beautiful I would be in a bathroom, holding fluffy towels on the large shelf, and fragrant soaps and toiletries on the small shelves in my top section. I’m sure she’ll smooth out my rough spots and paint me a new color, maybe a soft pastel. Or maybe white, the way I started out.

Either way, I think I’ll be happy there.