Well, happy year of the rooster!

If my new dental hygienist wasn’t six feet tall, blond, green eyed, had shoulders broader than mine, a last name with nine letters (three of which are vowels), and was called Petrushka, she could pass for my former dental hygienist May Ling who is Chinese.

Their teeth cleaning styles are as different as their physiques.

May Ling is subtle and gentle as she cleans and polishes, all wrists and fingers, making cooing sounds like a dove as she works.

‘trushka is all shoulders and elbows with judgmental grunts and “tsks” during her scraping and digging task. From where I was sitting it looked like what a large pot of borscht might see as it was being stirred … or maybe what a ditch sees while being dug.

The ultimate outcome of their ministrations is the same: clean, shiny teeth.

Both are first generation in this country, families fleeing oppressive Communist regimes in the 1970s. My family has been on this continent since the reign of King Charles the First, we helped throw off the shackles in 1776.

Both May Ling and Petrushka judge the world from the perspective of the open mouths of strangers … the fizzy soda drinkers, coffee or tea drinkers, cigarette smokers, the flossing and not-flossing. I inherited the stereotypical English gene for bad teeth. It isn’t all my fault.

Cultures clashing, histories rubbing shoulders … roosters have no teeth.