Dentist-Day
Our dentist's surgery looks like a Chinese takeaway. It's in a row of shops and has a full frontage glass window (with blinds of course - discretion guaranteed). Next door is a kosher Chinese restauarant which adds to the effect. Penetrate the blinds through the front door into one large room with a counter. I swear to you "number 25 with fried rice please" was on my lips but I couldn't get it out due to the cold sweat and convulsive shivering. And behind the counter - in a room within a room - the torture chamber.
And by the way, it wasn't 2:30 when we arrived for the appointment...
I went in last of course. Women and children first, you know but the boys were out again in 5 minutes each, maximum. My last words to the kids as they escorted me through the inner door were "have the excessive sympathy ready for me coming out - and a stretcher"
There were some awkward moments
Herr Dentist: So who was your last dentist?
Me: I'm not sure if I can remember.
Herr Dentist: Have you just moved into the area?
Me: No.
Name, rank and number. Name, rank and number.
And then the chair. I had forgotten just how bad it was. The blinding light. The strange smell. The proximity of the dentist. The terror as he probed in my teeth with the sharp metal instrument. And looking up beyond his masked face to the ceiling where someone had affixed a poster of Concorde and a Spitfire flying together. At least it wasn't a Messerschmitt!
Bizarrely, as I looked up at that poster with mouth wide open and realised that I was finally back at the dentist after all these years, I was seized with the humour of it all and had to fight to suppress a laugh. I hope he didn't notice, I didn't want to him to think I was some sort of a nutter. But I needn't have bothered. I think he had already made his mind up on that one.
And so the outcome. After 10 years of dental abstinence - a clean bill of health! Remarkable and educational. So finally, a few observations
- Is there really a need for adults to visit the dentist every 6 months when I can survive for 10 years and need nothing done?
- We had agreed a fee of twenty-something pounds for a check-up, scale and polish. Why is it so predictable that he decided without as much a by-your-leave to give me 2 xrays and add a tenner on to the bill?
- And oh my God - what about those xrays? What if the hidden decay is revealed and I need to go back for treatment?
- Where did his assistant get that uniform?!?
10:05:01 PM 
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