This is the story of how I met Anita Fok, DDS.

I was young, I was in Malaysia getting a Visa for Thailand and I needed a dentist. My first mistake? Taking a recommendation from an aging (to put it nicely), more than slightly inebriated British ex-pat I happened upon in the Reggae Club of Penang.

"You need a dentist?", he said, leering at me in the way that only drunk older men tend to do. 'I've got a tip."

I told him that I heard all about the dental hospital in town and how friendly, nice, and clean it was. Just like America?

He gave me the tip that sent me on a different course for a very long time.

"Go to the Australian Consulate."

I told him that as I was an American citizen, thank you very much, and though not quite proud of my government at the time, there would be no way I was going to the Aussie Consulate for advice on a very personal problem, my teeth!

"He's a dentist, too. And he's cheap."

The cheap part was not difficult to believe, but I had a hard time finding solace in the fact that I could take care of any Australian affairs I needed to have done while having my tooth extracted. I decided to ignore him for the old lech that I thought he was and continued to drink copious amounts of beer while bopping my head to Bob Marley.

The dental hospital was closed the next day, while the Australian consulate/dentist was not. I went in a bit hesitantly, and asked if the large-ish man standing before me was also a dentist. Then, I noticed the chair in the corner. It was a comfy-looking as a dental chair and had all of the appropriate tools or what looked to my young-ish eyes to be the appropriate and necessary dental tools. I decided then and there, tired of Malaysia and eager to get back to Thailand, to enjoy the rest of my trip.

I sat in the chair. There wasn't a cute dental assistant to put a bib on me. Just a big man prying open my mouth. I did. It was the worst: my wisdom tooth (what I later learned to be tooth 31) had developed a cavity slightly smaller than the state of Idaho.

Instead of getting it extracted, I had it filled by the Australian consulate/dentist in Penang, Malaysia.He was fast and it cost me three dollars for the wisdom tooth and about $3.50 for another filling which only lasted 9 months.

 

Four years later, my wisdom tooth filling fell out, causing me to get an ear ache, a terrible sore throat, a sharp pain in my tooth whenever I talked, ate, and drank, and a general state of grumpiness.

I chose my new dentist among many from my new Smart Smile Dental Plan, not for her experience, which was touted on a few web sites as being good, but her name. I mean, come on, whose dentist is actually named Anita Fok?

Anita Fok, who was actually a fantastic dentist, extracted said wisdom tooth in less than a minute. No pain, no gain is a constant mantra of some, but not with Anita Fok. No sirreee, Bob- she was,  to quote Bob Dylan “right on target, so direct”.

The moral to the story?  Never trust drunk British ex-pats for their dental wisdom because their teeth are probably all crap anyway, stay away from any consular officers who moonlight as dentists, and when you think you “need-a-fok”, you might really just be needing a dentist.