I have been putting this off for some time now. I will now begin approving comments before the are available for public view. PLEASE continue to leave comments, as they are my motivation to continue writing.
Damn Spam!
Copper
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The dentist
Someone answers. As i listen I begin to realize this gent is open for business! Seriously? He is two towns over but still, we're in the Bible Belt. That is unheard of in this area. He hands me my phone and asks will I drive him. Where?! To the DENTIST? Umm, I guess so. At least maybe the complaining will be over.
So we start out. He had gotten directions and i punch them into TomTom. All the while I am thinking that this just seems real odd to me. By the time we get there it around 11pm. I pull up to see one vehicle in the parking lot. A Navigator. Ok, so maybe he does well for himself. Its a bit promising.
We walk in and see a shabby looking waiting room. Mis-matched chairs around the walls. Very old, sticky looking magazines are strewn around on wobbly tables. It smells like the cinnamon fluoride paste that dentist offices are famous for.
All around the room there are photocopied lists hung:
1 tooth - $50
2 teeth - $60
3 teeth - $65
The list goes all the way through until the last line:
Full mouth - $350
I had to blink a few times for the effect to set in. Now a lady in Carolina blue BabyPhat scrubs approach us. She verifies that he is the person that they were expecting and leads us down a short hallway to a room on the left. It looks unkempt if not plain dirty. I choose the only chair in the room, other than the reclining dental contraption reserved for the patient. It was a metal framed waiting room chair with the typical light padding and grey upholstery over the seat and back rest. It vaguely occurs to me that there are bits of white and pink fuzz stuck to it. I am tired and have to work the next day so it don't even make an attempt to wipe it off, i just sit.
He takes his place as patient and its only a few seconds until the woman rushes back in with a clipboard. She asks him a few very basic questions and says sign here. He complies. I will later reason that she did not explain what he was being asked to sign because it was no doubt a waiver releasing the office from any and all liability for... well... anything.
Now it gets interesting. The dentist comes in the room like a man on a real mission.He walks up to my friend and says "Pay me." My friend complies. He darts past me to the other side of the room. He reaches behind the reclining chair and pulls out a tray of dental devices de' torture. He looks up and out into the hallway. The man yells "What are you dense? Get the hell in here!" The woman comes running in carrying the customary blue bib with chain and drapes it over my friend, not bothering to put the chain around his shoulders and attach the clip. The dentist fills a syringe from a clear vial and states "I am giving you a shot and it will hurt." In less than a heartbeat he jams it into my friend's mouth. I flinch from my post in the corner. My friend screams words that his momma would smack him for. Then... what happened next still makes me cringe.
The good doctor reaches for one of his utensils. Its a slim stainless steel thing, similar to a set of pliers. He is in my friend's mouth in a blink a hear a crack. Another, he pulls out a piece of tooth and slings it across the room. The shard bounces off the wall and hits the floor. I realize that I am staring at the piece of tooth and that my mouth is hanging open. It is a very good thing that I closed it because then came another bit and it bounced off of my cheek and onto my leg. Oh! I look up to see a what actually appears to be a madman. He is hunched over my friend, pulling and breaking off bits of tooth and throwing them over his shoulder. My friend is making noises that are about half shriek and half gag. The lady in blue is standing there with the plastic sucking device. Every few seconds she does her thing. My friend has passed out. I suppose he has gotten all the tooth out because he stops, stands up and turns to me and says " What kind of pain medication does he want?" Umm, I don't know, isn't that his job? I don't say this though. I don't say anything. But I do close my mouth because it was open again. He leaves the room as does the nurse. I sit there for just a moment before my friend wakes up moaning. The nurse returns and hands me a stack of papers and says
" Leave now. He is awake. Take him to the Walgreen's across the street."
As I rise to leave this house of horrors, my final thought was of the bits of white and pink fuzz that I noticed in the chair when we arrived.
I was sitting on strangers teeth!
I confess I removed my pants in the parking lot of the dentist office. I left them laying there. I refused to allow the particles of someones pearly whites to enter my car. My friend was unconscious. The man at the Walgreen's drive through window didn't say a word. I suppose the look on my face kept him silenced.
For weeks afterward my friend picked little scraps of tooth from the wound.
This dentist office is still open and from the looks of the parking lot during regular hours, has a thriving business.
Copper
Now it gets interesting. The dentist comes in the room like a man on a real mission.He walks up to my friend and says "Pay me." My friend complies. He darts past me to the other side of the room. He reaches behind the reclining chair and pulls out a tray of dental devices de' torture. He looks up and out into the hallway. The man yells "What are you dense? Get the hell in here!" The woman comes running in carrying the customary blue bib with chain and drapes it over my friend, not bothering to put the chain around his shoulders and attach the clip. The dentist fills a syringe from a clear vial and states "I am giving you a shot and it will hurt." In less than a heartbeat he jams it into my friend's mouth. I flinch from my post in the corner. My friend screams words that his momma would smack him for. Then... what happened next still makes me cringe.
The good doctor reaches for one of his utensils. Its a slim stainless steel thing, similar to a set of pliers. He is in my friend's mouth in a blink a hear a crack. Another, he pulls out a piece of tooth and slings it across the room. The shard bounces off the wall and hits the floor. I realize that I am staring at the piece of tooth and that my mouth is hanging open. It is a very good thing that I closed it because then came another bit and it bounced off of my cheek and onto my leg. Oh! I look up to see a what actually appears to be a madman. He is hunched over my friend, pulling and breaking off bits of tooth and throwing them over his shoulder. My friend is making noises that are about half shriek and half gag. The lady in blue is standing there with the plastic sucking device. Every few seconds she does her thing. My friend has passed out. I suppose he has gotten all the tooth out because he stops, stands up and turns to me and says " What kind of pain medication does he want?" Umm, I don't know, isn't that his job? I don't say this though. I don't say anything. But I do close my mouth because it was open again. He leaves the room as does the nurse. I sit there for just a moment before my friend wakes up moaning. The nurse returns and hands me a stack of papers and says
" Leave now. He is awake. Take him to the Walgreen's across the street."
As I rise to leave this house of horrors, my final thought was of the bits of white and pink fuzz that I noticed in the chair when we arrived.
I was sitting on strangers teeth!
I confess I removed my pants in the parking lot of the dentist office. I left them laying there. I refused to allow the particles of someones pearly whites to enter my car. My friend was unconscious. The man at the Walgreen's drive through window didn't say a word. I suppose the look on my face kept him silenced.
For weeks afterward my friend picked little scraps of tooth from the wound.
This dentist office is still open and from the looks of the parking lot during regular hours, has a thriving business.
Copper
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Amusement Park: You gotta call that love, man.
When I was a little girl I would become so excited at the mention of a trip to the amusement park. I would be sitting up in the backseat of my mom's Oldsmobile smiling ear to ear and talking my parent's heads off. The would repeatedly have to tell me to sit back in the seat and be quiet. I would comply for about five minutes. I just couldn't wait. The thrill of the roller coasters and candy peanuts have since wained considerably, although I still enjoy a good wooden track with plenty of twists and turns, once in a while. The truth is that I rarely think of the amusement park these days, someone close to me recently used it to teach me a lesson I will not soon forget.
It was one of those experiences in your life that you never truly expected to have. I was like that little girl again, siting up in the back seat and loving every moment. I was in a place that I wanted to be, with someone that I wanted to be there with and all was right with the world. As the time passed I was saddened because I was painfully aware that soon, it would all have to end as abruptly as it had began. It hurt. I was in the midst of feeling sorry for myself when I was told:
" Don't spend the entire time at the amusement park crying because you will have to leave. Enjoy it for what it is while you can. If you don't, you will look up and it will all be over. You will have missed it."
He was exactly right. I may never visit that 'amusement park' again, but I rode all the rides I could and ate all the candy peanuts I could find.
I am reminded of a quote by Janice Joplin from Ball and Chain:
"I mean, if you got a cat for one day, man — I mean, if you, say, say, if you want a cat for 365 days, right — You ain't got him for 365 days, you got him for one day, man.
Well I tell you that one day, man, better be your life, man.
Because, you know, you can say, oh man, you can cry about the other 364, man, but you're gonna lose that one day, man, and that's all you've got.
You gotta call that love, man."
What else could be said?
Fin
Fin
Copper
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