Tag Archives: Dentistry

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Keep the change

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I’m reading slowly right now – lots of translating work to do. Here’s a personal challenge – even when I actually have plenty of time to finish a translation project, I tend to treat it as if I have a deadline looming. Which makes me neglect other important things (like reading books to review). There must be an adjective to describe such a condition. Oh yes, it’s called “obsessive-compulsive.”

I know how much you look forward to my semi-annual reports on dentist visits. Well, you’re in luck, because I just got back from the dentist.  And be prepared for High Drama!!!!!!!

OK, not exactly drama. Change. I have a new dentist.

My old dentist, unbeknownst to me, suffered from a chronic lung condition. He had some kind of crisis, I learned, and decided to move to Texas. He left his practice in the hands of an old classmate, and so I had to go to a new place.

“I’m not sure I’m prepared for a change of dentist at my time of life,” to paraphrase Saki.

New office. Different parking situation. And I had to fill out all the paperwork anew.

Why must I suffer so?

I also had a small cavity, which I’ll have to get filled in a few weeks.

My great sorrow was that I lost my Dental Hygienist. The old DH was a genuine beauty, a vision of feminine loveliness whose hands I looked forward to having in my mouth every June and December. The changeover announcement said that the staff had transferred along with the practice, but I think that was hype. The new DH was very nice, and perfectly solicitous of me. But she wasn’t Heather… or Denise… or whatever the old girl’s name was. No doubt she’s been snapped up by some high-end practice in Edina.

I see no consolation anywhere about me. Except chocolate.

(I apologize for the run-together words in tonight’s post. We have a new posting system at WordPress and it’s driving me nuts.)

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A case of mistaken identity

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Last night was a memorable one in the never-ending, pulse-pounding drama that is my life. I was briefly mistaken for another man.

I had an appointment to get a dental filling replaced. When I came into the office, the receptionist greeted me happily, but – and here’s where the conductor should cue the ominous double note from the horns – she didn’t greet me by name. I said hello and sat down with my Kindle to wait. She said the doctor was running a little behind.

A few minutes later the (very beautiful) dental hygienist came out and said they were ready for me, but again (bum BUUUM) without saying my name. I was a little surprised that she was assisting with a filling, but I went along (frankly, I’d follow her anywhere). I sat down in the Comfy Chair, and she put the bib around my neck. She asked if I’d taken the antibiotics required after my hip replacements. I said my doctor had rescinded that order, and that I’d had them fax an affidavit to that effect to the dentist’s office. The dentist, from the other side of the partition, yelled, “Yes, I got that!” So the hygienist changed the record on the screen suspended just to my left.

“OK,” she said then. “Just a cleaning and check-up tonight, right?” she said.

No, I answered. I came to get a tooth filled.

A few moments of confusion followed, until we established that she’d been expecting a guy whose name sounds kind of like mine. So I retired to the waiting room again. The receptionist laughed (with some embarrassment). Apparently she’d mistaken me for this guy with the similar-sounding name who, she said, had a gray beard like me, looked kind of like me, and wore a hat. And also had had his hips replaced. I told the hygienist she’d probably better change the guy’s record back on the antibiotics thing.

And a few minutes later, in walked a guy who did look kind of like a taller version of me. Limping slightly. And he was wearing a hat. (A cowboy hat, but you get the idea.) In order to explain our laughter, I explained to him that he’d nearly gotten my tooth filling.

So if I disappear suddenly, somebody should check this guy out to see if he faked his death. I know from my mystery reading that that sort of thing happens all the time.