Every six months, like clockwork, I haul my old teeth (what's left of 'em) to the dentist for a cleaning. I never know what horror awaits me because I despise having bite-wing x-rays and I don't particularly enjoy sitting still for any length of time. The good news is that my hygienist is used to this. Over the years we've devised hilarious ways to get through the cleaning and x-ray process, and we always have a grand old time half-talking half-cleaning our way through the thirty or forty minutes we see each other twice a year.
The bad news is that I do not see my hygienist when I arrive. Even worse, this new gal is running late. Very late. I can see her (after letting her patient out late) setting up for my cleaning at a pace that I would call "elderly." Even a snail could move faster than this young woman. While I appreciate her meticulous manner, I am quietly seething that I raced up here for nine o'clock.
This is when I notice the waiting room around me. Until now I haven't given it much thought because I don't usually spend much time hanging out here. Usually there are magazines and flyers and all kinds of reading materials and visuals. There are paintings and windows and other things to distract the eye, but there have never been any clocks.
Hmmmmmm. What shall the three of us sitting here, waiting ... waiting ... waiting, do?
Look at our phones, of course.
Wrong.
You see, cell phones have one thing that the designers of the waiting room avoided in the first place: clocks. Now that we are all forced to entertain ourselves with our phones, we are all glaringly aware of how LATE the staff is running.
I have never had to wait here before. This is when I start noticing other things, too. The hygienist I now notice is not the only change here. What has happened to the regular staff? There is a new dentist doing all the consults, and the front desk staff has been replaced. If I hadn't been given this extra time, I doubt very much that I would be putting these pieces together.
As my cleaning appointment is now starting twenty-five minutes late, I am relieved that the new hygienist is not doing x-rays. But no, she is going to do the gum recession charting, which means forcing my non-bleeding gums to bleed. "Don't worry," she says, "we now do it remotely." Well, I don't know how "remotely" she means because she is painstakingly picking, talking to herself, turning to a computer behind her, and entering numbers ... one ... at ... a ... time.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
She takes so long doing this that the dentist comes in for his post-cleaning consult (meaning the end of my appointment) before the cleaning itself has actually started. Meanwhile, my brain is ticking off the time left on my parking meter. Dear lord, I am going to end up with a parking ticket because my forty-minute appointment is now surpassing one hour in addition to the late start.
Finally, mercifully, the cleaning ends. I am slowly making my next appointment when the hygienist opens a drawer. Do I want any supplies, like floss or a toothbrush? My cell phone starts ringing. I am expecting two important phone calls, so I push the hygienist aside, rush to my phone, answer it, breathe out, "I'll call you right back," and hang up. Yes,yes, dear Jesus, give me one of everything or nothing or anything, just get me the hell out of this office.
In six months I want someone to remind me: Be prepared to WAIT, pay for two full hours of parking, and bring my own damn magazine. Oh, and find a new strategy for bite-wings; I'm not so sure this gal can handle the humor.
