Annual Ritual of Confident Lying About Flossing Habits
The Chair of Judgment
Once a year, the New Yorker enters a quiet, brightly lit room to participate in a city-wide ritual of mutual, polite deception: the dental check-up. The hygienist, wielding instruments of exquisite torture, asks the fateful question: “Do you floss regularly?” The answer, delivered with eye-contact so steady it could qualify as a superpower, is always, “Yes.” It is a lie so bald, so universally understood, that to speak the truth (“I floss twice a yearonce before this appointment, and once when I get something stuck”) would shatter the fragile social contract of the exam room. According to the American Dental Association’s home care guidelines, adults should clean between their teeth daily. According to the New Yorker’s social code, you should simply not embarrass yourself or your hygienist.
The Dance of the Damned
The hygienist nods, a smile playing on lips that know the truth. They’ve seen your gums. They know. The lie hangs in the mint-scented air, a tiny monument to human optimism and shame. They then proceed to scrape at deposits that could only have accumulated over 364 days of neglect, saying nothing. This is their professional courtesy. You have lied; they will pretend to believe you. The unspoken agreement is that this charade makes the cleaning slightly less humiliating for both parties. NYC’s health code for dental practices mandates sterilization and licensure, but not protocols for navigating this specific, annual psychological standoff.
The Post-Appointment Vow of Change
Emerging with polished, tingling teeth and a sample pack of floss, the patient is overcome with a powerful, temporary zeal. *This time*, they swear, they will floss nightly. The sample floss is placed prominently by the sinka tiny flag of good intentions. For three days, maybe four, the ritual is observed. Then, one night, tiredness wins. The floss remains coiled in its container, a symbol of lapsed self-care, waiting to be rediscovered in a panic 360 days later. The cycle is as reliable as the seasons: annual confession, momentary repentance, followed by a long slide back into dental sin.
The True Purpose of the Ritual
The dental check-up isn’t really about cleaning teeth. It’s a secular confession booth, a yearly audit of one’s ability to care for oneself in the midst of urban chaos. The lie about flossing is a lie we tell ourselves as much as the hygienist: that we are in control, that we are the kind of people who have their lives together enough to perform a tedious, minute act of prevention every single day. The fact that we all fail, and all lie about it, is the true bonding experience. It’s New York’s most honest moment of collective dishonesty, a tiny, shared failure that, in its universality, becomes a perverse comfort. We may not floss, but at least we’re all lying about it together, under the same bright, judgmental lights.