A Crown for a Drama Queen

I hate going to the dentist. Hate, as in, it practically makes me go into seizures. As in, I hate it more than you ever could even though you also think you hate going to the dentist.

Going to the dentist finally became more palatable, however, when we moved last fall and I got a new one. Dr. Smith. Or as I like to call him, Dr. Fabulous.

"You've had braces," Dr. Smith said to me, rather matter-of-factly, the first time I met him. It wasn't a question, but rather an assumption.

"Nope," I replied, smiling broadly.

I've had this exchange with dentists before. I have tons of fillings from my childhood, which have turned into two (so far) root canals in my adulthood .. but by golly, my teeth are nice and straight and fool 'em every time.

"And they're so white and bright," he went on to say. (Were I a single woman with a vivid imagination, I might have let myself read a little "I wonder how they'd look in candlelight, say, at dinner tonight?" in that. Have a mentioned that I really like this dentist?)

I smiled more broadly.

"Do you bleach?"

I scowled. So much for impressing Dr. Delicious.

Thus, because I have, indeed, bleached my teeth in the past, and because my last root canal wasn't properly completed, I was sent to the dental lab for a "shade match" for my new crown. Today was that day.

I arrive at the lab and peek in the windows. People are bent over their work stations, busily working on, I don't know, teeth? It all appears very "employee only" and not where I should be checking in. So I walk back to the reception area and wait to be helped. The reception desk is quite tall, and I am quite short .. I can barely see the receptionist through her computer monitors and plant collection. She is finishing up a phone call.

"Can I help you?", she barks at me. At least, I think it's at me. I try to position myself where we might actually be able to see each other.

"Yes, I'm not sure if this is where I should be. I have a 2 pm appointment ..."

"Mary?", she interrupts, "I don't have a Mary on the schedule."

I look at her blankly. Is she talking to me? Or is she still on the phone? She's wearing a hands-free headset and I can't be sure ....

She stares at me. "Did you say your name was Mary?"

She must be talking to me, I decide. My mind is scrambling to figure out why she thought I said my name was Mary. "No", I finally manage to blurt out, "My name is Ronda. I was saying that I'm here for a shade match and I don't know where to check in."

"I thought you said your name Mary," she says flatly.

"I didn't say what my name was!", I exclaim, not so flatly.

She's no Dr. Smith, I grumble to myself. That man can understand every word I gurgle and gargle at him when he's working on my mouth. "Gllecchhh aaahhlggrrr", I'll tell him. "Isn't that fascinating," he'll murmur in return.

Ms. Charming instructs me to return to the lab. I do so, and am promptly escorted back to the reception area (as one apparently needs protective eye wear in the lab, and my $8 sunglasses perched on top of my head just wouldn't do. No working on teeth for me!). Thankfully, I am brought directly into a room and seated. "Oh, you have Or-ellll," my escort tells me, drawing out the second syllable of his name in such a way that I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. She scampers out of the room before I can clarify or protest.

Orell, as it turns out, is a portly, middle-aged foreign man who is balding on top but sports a nifty comb-over. He eyes me and immediately tells me I look familiar. I eye him and immediately decide he looks like a serial killer.

"Do you work for Kaiser?", he asks me. 'Do you kill people?', I want to ask him.

He doesn't say much else, except to grunt instructions at me in his thick accent: "Turn your head .. more .. open your mouth .. more .." I desperately miss Dr. Smith's velvet voice and his polite requests: "Can you please .. that's just perfect .. thank you so much .."

As Orell pokes at my lips and gums, I sit there imagining his co-workers being interviewed on the evening news, utterly shocked to find that he has killed multiple patients. "I just can't believe it. Orell? He's a little quiet, but he's so nice. He would never do anything like this!"

I finally complete my shade match, and then am forced to fill out a survey. Blessedly, it is short. I don't have anything nice to say. On the plus side, I now had something to blog about. And hey: completing it brings me one step closer to another dental office date with Dr. Dreamy, when he'll give me my new crown.

Now who else would treat a girl so good?