A Flipper is a Kind of Denture
I’ll bet everybody knew this except me.
That’s how it goes for me. I think I have uncovered some great new little-known fact and it turns out that it’s common knowledge, and I’m left feeling like an idiot. But then again maybe not this time because when I was looking for a picture for this article on Unsplash I searched “flipper” and there was not one picture that had anything to do with teeth. Ditto Pixabay, which is why I used the picture you see.
I was able to find some pictures of dental flippers using Google but they all looked vaguely disgusting. They look like a retainer with one or more teeth stuck in it. If you have ever worn a retainer, which I have, then you know what I mean. Retainers are not great to look at when they are just sitting there out in the open. When in your mouth (as intended), flippers make you look much better in that you now have a tooth or teeth in what was once a gap or gaps. Who want’s to be a gap-tooth? The flipper facsimile will fool all but the sharpest eye.
I would never have suspected that a flipper could be anything other than a fish’s appendage, a kind of footwear that helps you swim, or perhaps one who flips but for the fact that last Saturday, while my wife and I were driving along Rt.95 in Connecticut after having visited my son (from my ex) who lives in Brooklyn, my wife…
