May 18, 2000
My teeth deserve better - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- I was at the dentist’s recently. It’s no real big deal, I’ve already gotten over the, “Mommy, Mommy, I don’t want to go,” stage. I’ve been to my regular doctor a couple weeks before, and, after going through my migraine crap, am used to the doctor’s office. With that, let me use the following space to parlay some thoughts on the doctor’s office. Mere observations.
But, while my dentist experience is still on my mind, let me digress on that for a moment. My dentist is a thin, balding, soft-spoken man. Think Chan-Henry; as a matter of fact they talk in the same way. Anyways, I’ve had him as a dentist since I was 5 and he seems like a nice guy. The chair is brown, the ugly kind and it’s the same chair that I’ve been sitting in since the mid 80’s. When I think about it, it feels like the 80’s.
The one thing I detest about going to this particular dentist (you can tell me if it’s the same for your dentist too,) is the crappy magazines in the waiting room. I swear, Doctors make decent amounts of money, the least he could do is get magazines that are less than 2 and a half years old. As I sat there, I looked through the three-level book shelf trying to find a magazine I could read. There weren’t any Maclean’s and I refused to look at Time, for one thing it’s American, the only Canadian thing in there are the ad’s and these issues of Time dated back to 1997. Actually it had a cover story on the upcoming federal election, ‘Oh, that’ll be an interesting election: Chrétien versus Jean Charest...’ Get my point?
There was Chatelaine, but that’s too woman for me, so pass. There were an assortment of those large format Chinese magazines: I’m not Chinese, so pass. There was a three-inch thick book-type thingy on wedding dresses, I’m not getting married in the next 15 minutes and I don’t think I need a Vera Wang gown, so pass. I don’t care about Ted Turner’s sprawling Montana ranch, so pass on the Fortune. Then there’s one People magazine from November 1999 and while I do finish flipping through it, it’s boring, because I remember reading the exact same issue in November of 1999.
I notice the dental hygienist, come from the back, so I start to put my magazine down to get ready and see her fake smile usher me into the dentist’s chair. At that point, she’s bitching at the receptionist in the most demeaning manner that when she does call me to go with her to the back I thrust my magazine on to the book shelf in defiance of the magazine selections and her reprehensible behaviour.
I get into the chair and I wait for the dentist to come in, ask me what’s wrong and does the once over in the old mouth. The hygienist tries to make small talk, and in her pushy, abrasive way, I see right through the fakeness and only answer in either a cold yes or an ‘uh-huh’.
I guess, I could go to another dentist, but it’s only a couple times a year I actually go there, so why bother. Maybe if I just take pristine care of my teeth, I won’t have to go at all.
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