Professor Teeth - The Secret History

In 2003, I was in a small antique store in Topeka, Kansas. I was looking for antique postcards and comic books, which are actually still available at decent prices in out-of-the-way antique malls in the midwest, when I saw Professor Teeth staring at me from a dusty shelf. He was fucking terrifying and I knew that he had to be mine.

At that point, of course, he wasn't Professor Teeth. It was just a bizarre hybrid of a Terminator and a set of dentures. My cousin Evan used a toothbrush and some toothpaste to clean it up, and I used some polish on the dome, and it cleaned up pretty well. A little research informed me that this was an old-school 1950s, 1960s dental head-- a device that would allow dental students to practice working on teeth. Presumably, you'd perch over the chromedome and stick your latex-gloved fingers into the mouth of the thing to work on its teeth. There are current dental heads with rubber faces, but I can't imagine them being nearly this disturbing. I took the head home with me. I imagined it as a conversation piece; a bizarre thing in a corner that would inspire houseguests to flights of fancy.

Then I started having goddamn nightmares about it.

The nightmares were always the same. I'd be doing normal household activities, making a sandwich or watching television or working on my computer-- and I'd see some motion out of the corner of my eye. I'd whip my head around and there would be the head, motionless. I'd chalk it up to imagination and resume working, and then see movement or hear a chattering, and I'd look again and it would be slightly closer. The dreams always ended with the head chattering like crazy and whirling towards me, ready to attack my face with its perfect dentures.

Now it does chatter. I count this as a victory. I'm not sure if that's how I should view it.