Sometimes it’s fair.

“K, L, E, F, G, I. She’s going to lose this one today. Still a 2.”

Sometimes it’s horrendous, with dark, stumpy little teeth and gum infections or mouths in which the bad teeth outnumber the good. Tuesday’s record was 14 bad teeth out of 20.

For two and a half hours, they kept coming: Kashon and Yarumi, Noyeli, Rocio, Kyara and Andres, originally from Puerto Rico, Ecuador and Peru, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey, all wide-eyed about their amazing voyage. Most had never seen a dentist.

DR. GRUNSTEIN graduated from dental school at Temple University in 2001 planning to go into general dentistry. When he began working at a clinic in Paterson, he was asked if he would treat children, a job no one wanted because it meant dealing with the Medicaid bureaucracy and New Jersey’s Medicaid reimbursement was pitifully low, often a third of New York’s. Only about 700 dentists in the state handled Medicaid cases, and only a fraction of them did pediatric cases. Hard work, aggravation, low pay  what a deal.

But Dr. Grunstein felt he had found a calling. Someone had to see the kids of Paterson. Why not him? He decided to start his own pediatric dental practice and came up with the idea of the fire truck as a way to screen children pro bono, so their parents could learn about the children’s dental health, and so he could get his name out in a big way.

“When I was at Temple there was a pediatric dentist named David Bresler, who had a ‘cavity-buster mobile,’ like the Cadillac hearse from ‘Ghostbusters,’ with a big giant tooth on top and a toothbrush on the side,” he said. “I’ve always been a car and truck guy, and I figured, why not a fire truck? Dentists have a bad rep with kids, but firefighters are universally loved. I get to be the guy with the fire truck, not the guy with the needle and drill.”

In four years, Dr. Grunstein has screened 25,000 children. His practice has grown to nine dentists serving 18,000 kids.

Is this an upbeat tale about how America works  the guy in the yarmulke screening the black, brown, Hispanic and Muslim kids, free? Or a cautionary one about our ridiculous broken health system, in which it takes a guy with a fire truck to make sure little kids see a dentist? Choose your lesson.

“Come in. Slowly. Slowly. This is not an invasion.”

“Good. Nice. No cavities. Wow. Three in a row.”

“No, we can’t go for a ride. Show me those teeth. Oh. Beautiful.”