Let me tell you a little about my Thursday mornings. They’re painful. Real painful. Like a migraine, a cold-cock to the groin and a Pauly Shore movie marathon, all in one serving.

Why? There’s no easy way to admit this, but I — four years removed from my last visit to the orthodontist, six months shy of my 21st birthday, just one more academic year from entering the real world — still wear a retainer.

I wear it once a week. Wednesday nights. Before bedtime, I pop in that grimy blue mouthpiece, feeling equal parts duty and dread, and wait for the pain. When I wake up Thursday, my mouth plays host to a Metallica concert. High-strung throbbing and sharp, piercing echo from every known cavity, and I curse my orthodontist.

Damn him, for assaulting me with this oral hex. Admittedly, I bring some of the pain on myself — I am the one, after all, who decided to wear the retainer just one night a week and disregard the all-day-every-day regimen Dr. Frank prescribed four years ago. But I never miss a Wednesday. Seven hours with my retainer once every seven days, I’ve decided, is the proper span needed to temporarily reset my jaw into the correct position. It’s one hellish nightshift.

Well, at least until now. Last week, I decided to shirk the shift. I’d retain the retainer no longer. I was going to throw it away, or at least sentence it to a lifetime — unseen and unscented — in that crusted container blemishing my nightstand.

That is, until I spoke with Dr. Jay Prakash. He’s an orthodontist, and a very good one, presumably, who practices in Liverpool. I called him last Thursday afternoon in need of an expert’s approval.

I told him I’d lost contact with my orthodontist back home. I told him about my embarrassing weekly routine. I told him about the agony. And I told him I was ready to stop.

Dr. Prakash didn’t seem the least bit moved. “Keep wearing it,” he said. “I don’t care if it turns your jaw into grinding tectonic plates. I don’t care it wakes you up in pain at 6:07 a.m. I don’t even care if it gives you a speech deficiency you couldn’t swap straight-up with Milton Waddams” –– or something like that.

Because I never wore my retainer with regularity, I never learned how to speak while wearing it. I ram that piece of plastic into my mouth and all of a sudden I’m an Ashkenazi Jew chanting Torah. T’s become S’s. Right is rice. Ton is sun. I try to grin and bear it, but with this most impractical parlance, you’d swear I’m trying to grin and bear ass.

Earlier in life, these ortho-bred speaking impediments were common. Cool, even. At the conclusion of the school day, half of junior high piled into minivans and reconvened 15 minutes later in the orthodontist’s waiting room. I selected the scheme for my braces depending on the uniform colors of my Little League team.

Few people, though, color coordinate orthodontic devices with a collegiate cap and gown. But I fear I might be one of them. If I heed the advice of Dr. Prakash, I most certainly will.

And what if I don’t? Will my mouth revert to its overbitten form and necessitate a second go-‘round with braces?

It’s not worth the risk. I am sticking with the retainer. Dr. Frank, wherever you are, you can now exhale. But if any other practicing orthodontist feels safe giving me the green light to abandon the retainer, I’d be happy to hear from you.

You know where and when to reach me. Early as daylight, Thursday morning.

Chico Harlan is a junior newspaper major. E-mail him at apharlan@syr.edu.

Published on January 27, 2003 at 12:00 pm