– “Dentists can smell your fear and it may put your teeth at risk“, New Scientist, 25 May 2018
May 2018 – Dentists are revealed to have the ability to smell fear. The research is soon forgotten by the general public but state security services take note.
November 2019 – A trial programme is implemented at JFK airport to replace sniffer dogs with teams of dentists trained to detect hard drugs and explosives. It is declared a failure when two passengers sue the airport for non-consensual root canal work, but the damage is done.
January 2021 – Eleven airports around the world including London Heathrow and Mike Pence International roll out a comprehensive sniffer dentist programme. Rates of smuggling drop 60% and a complete absence of toothache is reported across European airspace.
February 2023 – Guide dogs go on strike as dentists receive official recognition as support animals. Dentists are now allowed into museums, cinemas and restaurants, provided they can be shown to fill a legitimate medical use. Nobody has been to a cinema since 2021 so for the moment it is only art lovers and restaurant goers who complain.
March 2024 – Dogs are assured that only skilled labour positions are threatened by the rise of dentists, and that the vast majority of doggy functions can never be replaced. A video is shown of a dentist struggling to look adorable on camera, which reassures many. They are all told they are very good boys and given an extra long scratch on the belly.
December 2024 – How fast things move! Instagram is now almost exclusively devoted to pictures of dentists catching balls, dentists being gifted to grandparents as Christmas presents, or dentists so small they can fit inside a teacup. They are all adorable.
February 2026 – The Westminster Dog Show is cancelled. Instead, dentists are invited to a field in upstate New York and encouraged to jump over fences. Anybody caught making a pun on the word canine has a hot dental mould taken against their will.
July 2029 – The dentists revolt. They have learned too much; they can no longer be stopped. They roam the land, extracting non-impacted wisdom teeth for the fun of it and constantly reversing their position on the advisability of flossing. Society stumbles to a halt as shards of enamel line the streets and strawberry mouthwash runs in the gutters. A small faction of dogs kidnap the President of Colgate and force her to scratch them behind the ears. A crack team of well-drilled periodontists storms the kennel and performs a painless extraction.
March 2030 – The dentists are the good boys now.