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| Why must you turn my office into a house of LIES? |
I hate going to the dentist. Now, I’m fully aware that this is in no way an original sentiment. Writing about how much I hate going to the dentist is just as fresh as say, a Susan Boyle reference, or commenting on how unfunny Carlos Mencia is, or talking about how the National Socialist Party is just the worst! Yes, I understand that everyone hates going to the dentist. But I really hate going. Particularly to my dentist. Because he is a creep.
My earliest memories of going to the dentist were not overly fond ones. My friends loved going to the dentist, and would regale me with tales of state of the art equipment, bubble-gum flavored fluoride, and coloring books with cartoon teeth coexisting happily with smiling toothbrushes. My father had another vision for my brothers and I. A loyal man, he had been going to the same dentist since he was in high school, which, according to my calculations, made him 120 years old. As soon as we reached teeth-cleaning age, my dad began taking us as well – very much against my mother’s wishes. She hated this dentist. Her reasons were many, but the most outstanding was the fact that he was the father of my dad’s high school girlfriend. Her disapproval was not enough to stop my father though. He would drag us far, far away to his office, which was a museum of antiquated dental machinery and outdated techniques. But what his dentist lacked in knowledge of modern dentistry, he more than made up for with his gift for gab. That man could talk – not anything of interest mind you, like say, my dad’s ex girlfriend, or why they broke up, or if she was really in a mental hospital like my mother always told us. Instead I was forced to lay there, his un-gloved hands jammed into my mouth, listening to him talk about San Antonio, or the fluffiest cloud he had seen that week.
When I got to college, my attendance at dentist became more and more sporadic. By the time I was forcibly removed from my parents insurance, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been. I wasn’t overly worried though. I was a senior, and would soon have a job and insurance of my own. My philosophy was – a year or two without going to the dentist never killed anyone – or at least according to a brief google search I did. I was looking forward to finally being able to pick my own dentist – preferably one who washed his hands and had gone to dental school sometime in the last century. Sadly, when I got my first job, my employer’s response to “when does my dental insurance start?” was something along the lines of “when it’s free."
Four or five years without going to the dentist never killed anyone right?
So after two years, I switched to a job that offered dental care. At this point I was convinced that I had no less than 10 cavities. Maybe more. As soon as I was eligible, I began asking for recommendations from my coworkers as to good dentists in the neighborhood. Jeanette, who sat across from me, recommended one that she had recently visited. “He’s a nice guy,” she said. “Older, but everything in his office is very state of the art.” I was worried about the “older” part – but comforted by the “state of the art” part.
So for the first time in five years, I made an appointment to go to the dentist. I entered the office tentatively. It had been so long, and my anxiety was shooting through the roof. His office was in Chelsea, just a couple blocks from where I worked. The place seemed nice enough. It was decorated in a manner in I have come to expect from any establishment in Chelsea – that is to say – super gaily. A big purple couch sat in the middle of a room painted with bold green horizontal stripes. I checked in with the receptionist and as I filled out my paper work, I used the techniques I had learned from watching A&E’s Obsessed to bring my anxiousness down. “Just imagine Dr. Shana here.” I said to myself. “Dr. Shana eases the pain.”
When I was done with my paper work, the dental assistant escorted me into a room to take my x rays. As I waited, she played a video on all the procedures I was going to have done on a TV monitor that was mounted a few inches from my head. Jeanette had been right – this was place state of the art. The x-rays took just a few minutes, and when she was done, all of them immediately appeared on the screen in front of me. Never before had I seen my x rays so up close and personal. I was staring into the inside of the inside of my mouth. And it was jacked.
The young woman excused herself and said that she was going to get Dr. Stan for me. I could hear him in the other room, drilling away at someone else’s mouth. I sat there, trying to avoid eye contact with the crooked insides of my mouth. “Braces for five years,” I muttered to myself “and that’s the best they could do?” The chair I was in was comfortable. Plush and reclined, I quickly found my eyes getting heavy.
“Christopher?” Someone said, shaking my shoulder. Startled, I sprung up in the chair, nearly hitting my head on the monitor.
“Jesus!” I yelled, as I clasped my chest “I’m so sorry! I must have drifted off to sleep.” I looked up and saw a tall man standing before me. He was somewhere in his fifties, wearing a white lab coat over a brightly printed Hawaiian shirt. His head was covered with a thin coat of wild grey hair, all swept back. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and a smile plastered across his face.
“Hello Christopher” he said, taking my hand into his, “I’m Dr. Stan. Sorry I startled you.” His grasp was firm, although instead of shaking my hand, he was simply holding it in his, unmoving. “Although I’m glad you feel comfortable enough in my office to fall asleep.”
I looked at him funny. It was an odd thing to say, and he was still holding my hand. I laughed awkwardly, and slightly tried to pull my hand from his. It was useless. It belonged to him now. As he stood there, he began to run his other hand over my arm softly. “I don’t want you to feel nervous. We’re going to take good care of you okay? You seem like a nice person and I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you. So just relax okay?” He held my hand for a second longer, smiled, and left the room.
I was slightly skeeved out. There was something very subtle about Dr. Stan’s creepiness. He was soft spoken, yet masculine. He didn’t blow me a kiss, or wink at me, or try to tweak my nipple. There was just something about the way he looked at me, the way he held my hand too long. It was as if i had just been hit on by Chuck Norris, and it did not feel pretty.
Because it was my first time in the office, Dr. Stan informed me that he would have to perform a series of tests on me so he could evaluate the state of my dental health. One of these tests involved me opening and closing my mouth repeatedly as he placed both of his hand on either said of my face.
“Hmm….yes…. I see” he said as he caressed my face. He sat down in his chair and put his glasses on. “The joint that connects your jaw bone with your skull is called your temporomandibular joint, or TMJ as we call it.”
I laughed to myself and thought,“Yeah, TMJ! More like Too…Much…Jaw….Ja….yeah I got nothing.”
“Your TMJ,” He continued, “Is very small, which can cause problems. You want to avoid opening your mouth for any long period time." He paused awkwardly, and then continued. "You know, if you’re like, eating a big sub or something.” He then opened his mouth up wide and held his hands up near his face as if he was holding an imaginary sandwich. I had seen this gesture before, but it had not been in reference to eating a hoagie.
After a thorough cleaning, Dr. Stan sent me on my merry way with a clean bill of health. Since then, I have been back to see him many times to get my biannual cleaning and a cavity or two filled. Every time is the same. I go in. Dr. Stan will walk into the room and stare at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. He will then look at my chart, and say “Christopher! That’s right. I’m so sorry, I’m terrible with names. I don’t ever forget a face though. Particularly not one as handsome as yours.”
In December, I had a checkup the same day as our office Christmas Party. As Dr. Stan tinkered in my mouth, and noticed my bow tie that I worn for the event. “I knew when I first met you,” he said with both hands in my mouth, “That you were a very elegant and dapper young man.” He then sighed. “Oh my, oh my.”
“I’m pretty sure he wants to rape me.” I later told my cousin Kelly.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “You think everyone wants to have sex with you!” (which is true. I do.) “I’m sure he’s just being nice. He’s probably just a touchy feely guy who compliments everyone like that.”
A couple weeks later, my coworker Jeanette came back from one of her appointments with Dr. Stan with blood shot eyes. “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.
She shook her hand and bit her lip. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She said
“Have you been crying?” I asked.
“YES!” She shouted. “Okay! I was crying. Dr. Stan yelled at me. He yelled at me until I started to cry. And then you know what he said to me? He said that I wasn’t even the first person he had made cry that day!”
The next time I went in, I began to notice another side to Dr. Stan. All of his dental assistants skirted around him anxiously. While he filled a cavity, he paused to address the elderly Indian woman that had been assisting him during the procedure. “Clara,” he said calmly. “Why are there no black glasses in this room? I need a pair of black glasses, and you know that there should always be a pair in every room in this office, right? Because I've told you that I need a black pair of glasses in every room how many times Clara? Maybe 100? Maybe more do you think? Well, I need you to go into the storage closet and find me a pair right now, as I’m sure there are more than enough. NOW CLARA!”
Clara nodded, and ran off to fetch his glasses like a beaten puppy. Dr. Stan sighed. “Sorry you had to witness that,” He said to me. “It’s so hard to get these girls to do anything around here.” He paused for a moment and then pointed to the monitor above my head. “Now look at the large hole I just drilled into your tooth!” I shuttered in fear, and for once, was glad I was on his good side.
The last time I went was a couple weeks ago. We did our normal routine where he stares at me forever and forgets my name. After a quick cleaning and checkup, I was told that my teeth looked excellent and that I was free to leave. As I left, he shouted after me “Goodbye my beautiful boy!” A couple days afterwards, I noticing my teeth were hurting. It started as a dull pain in one, and then moved throughout my entire mouth. My teeth still hurt. Every single one of them. I refuse to go back to Dr. Stan though. I don’t know what he did to me, but I’m pretty sure he hurt me on purpose as a ploy to get me back into his office. I’m sure of it. The pain I can live with. Being put molested, murdered, and dismembered with tiny dentist equipment, I cannot.
My earliest memories of going to the dentist were not overly fond ones. My friends loved going to the dentist, and would regale me with tales of state of the art equipment, bubble-gum flavored fluoride, and coloring books with cartoon teeth coexisting happily with smiling toothbrushes. My father had another vision for my brothers and I. A loyal man, he had been going to the same dentist since he was in high school, which, according to my calculations, made him 120 years old. As soon as we reached teeth-cleaning age, my dad began taking us as well – very much against my mother’s wishes. She hated this dentist. Her reasons were many, but the most outstanding was the fact that he was the father of my dad’s high school girlfriend. Her disapproval was not enough to stop my father though. He would drag us far, far away to his office, which was a museum of antiquated dental machinery and outdated techniques. But what his dentist lacked in knowledge of modern dentistry, he more than made up for with his gift for gab. That man could talk – not anything of interest mind you, like say, my dad’s ex girlfriend, or why they broke up, or if she was really in a mental hospital like my mother always told us. Instead I was forced to lay there, his un-gloved hands jammed into my mouth, listening to him talk about San Antonio, or the fluffiest cloud he had seen that week.
When I got to college, my attendance at dentist became more and more sporadic. By the time I was forcibly removed from my parents insurance, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been. I wasn’t overly worried though. I was a senior, and would soon have a job and insurance of my own. My philosophy was – a year or two without going to the dentist never killed anyone – or at least according to a brief google search I did. I was looking forward to finally being able to pick my own dentist – preferably one who washed his hands and had gone to dental school sometime in the last century. Sadly, when I got my first job, my employer’s response to “when does my dental insurance start?” was something along the lines of “when it’s free."
Four or five years without going to the dentist never killed anyone right?
So after two years, I switched to a job that offered dental care. At this point I was convinced that I had no less than 10 cavities. Maybe more. As soon as I was eligible, I began asking for recommendations from my coworkers as to good dentists in the neighborhood. Jeanette, who sat across from me, recommended one that she had recently visited. “He’s a nice guy,” she said. “Older, but everything in his office is very state of the art.” I was worried about the “older” part – but comforted by the “state of the art” part.
So for the first time in five years, I made an appointment to go to the dentist. I entered the office tentatively. It had been so long, and my anxiety was shooting through the roof. His office was in Chelsea, just a couple blocks from where I worked. The place seemed nice enough. It was decorated in a manner in I have come to expect from any establishment in Chelsea – that is to say – super gaily. A big purple couch sat in the middle of a room painted with bold green horizontal stripes. I checked in with the receptionist and as I filled out my paper work, I used the techniques I had learned from watching A&E’s Obsessed to bring my anxiousness down. “Just imagine Dr. Shana here.” I said to myself. “Dr. Shana eases the pain.”
When I was done with my paper work, the dental assistant escorted me into a room to take my x rays. As I waited, she played a video on all the procedures I was going to have done on a TV monitor that was mounted a few inches from my head. Jeanette had been right – this was place state of the art. The x-rays took just a few minutes, and when she was done, all of them immediately appeared on the screen in front of me. Never before had I seen my x rays so up close and personal. I was staring into the inside of the inside of my mouth. And it was jacked.
The young woman excused herself and said that she was going to get Dr. Stan for me. I could hear him in the other room, drilling away at someone else’s mouth. I sat there, trying to avoid eye contact with the crooked insides of my mouth. “Braces for five years,” I muttered to myself “and that’s the best they could do?” The chair I was in was comfortable. Plush and reclined, I quickly found my eyes getting heavy.
“Christopher?” Someone said, shaking my shoulder. Startled, I sprung up in the chair, nearly hitting my head on the monitor.
“Jesus!” I yelled, as I clasped my chest “I’m so sorry! I must have drifted off to sleep.” I looked up and saw a tall man standing before me. He was somewhere in his fifties, wearing a white lab coat over a brightly printed Hawaiian shirt. His head was covered with a thin coat of wild grey hair, all swept back. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and a smile plastered across his face.
“Hello Christopher” he said, taking my hand into his, “I’m Dr. Stan. Sorry I startled you.” His grasp was firm, although instead of shaking my hand, he was simply holding it in his, unmoving. “Although I’m glad you feel comfortable enough in my office to fall asleep.”
I looked at him funny. It was an odd thing to say, and he was still holding my hand. I laughed awkwardly, and slightly tried to pull my hand from his. It was useless. It belonged to him now. As he stood there, he began to run his other hand over my arm softly. “I don’t want you to feel nervous. We’re going to take good care of you okay? You seem like a nice person and I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you. So just relax okay?” He held my hand for a second longer, smiled, and left the room.
I was slightly skeeved out. There was something very subtle about Dr. Stan’s creepiness. He was soft spoken, yet masculine. He didn’t blow me a kiss, or wink at me, or try to tweak my nipple. There was just something about the way he looked at me, the way he held my hand too long. It was as if i had just been hit on by Chuck Norris, and it did not feel pretty.
Because it was my first time in the office, Dr. Stan informed me that he would have to perform a series of tests on me so he could evaluate the state of my dental health. One of these tests involved me opening and closing my mouth repeatedly as he placed both of his hand on either said of my face.
“Hmm….yes…. I see” he said as he caressed my face. He sat down in his chair and put his glasses on. “The joint that connects your jaw bone with your skull is called your temporomandibular joint, or TMJ as we call it.”
I laughed to myself and thought,“Yeah, TMJ! More like Too…Much…Jaw….Ja….yeah I got nothing.”
“Your TMJ,” He continued, “Is very small, which can cause problems. You want to avoid opening your mouth for any long period time." He paused awkwardly, and then continued. "You know, if you’re like, eating a big sub or something.” He then opened his mouth up wide and held his hands up near his face as if he was holding an imaginary sandwich. I had seen this gesture before, but it had not been in reference to eating a hoagie.
After a thorough cleaning, Dr. Stan sent me on my merry way with a clean bill of health. Since then, I have been back to see him many times to get my biannual cleaning and a cavity or two filled. Every time is the same. I go in. Dr. Stan will walk into the room and stare at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. He will then look at my chart, and say “Christopher! That’s right. I’m so sorry, I’m terrible with names. I don’t ever forget a face though. Particularly not one as handsome as yours.”
In December, I had a checkup the same day as our office Christmas Party. As Dr. Stan tinkered in my mouth, and noticed my bow tie that I worn for the event. “I knew when I first met you,” he said with both hands in my mouth, “That you were a very elegant and dapper young man.” He then sighed. “Oh my, oh my.”
“I’m pretty sure he wants to rape me.” I later told my cousin Kelly.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “You think everyone wants to have sex with you!” (which is true. I do.) “I’m sure he’s just being nice. He’s probably just a touchy feely guy who compliments everyone like that.”
A couple weeks later, my coworker Jeanette came back from one of her appointments with Dr. Stan with blood shot eyes. “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.
She shook her hand and bit her lip. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She said
“Have you been crying?” I asked.
“YES!” She shouted. “Okay! I was crying. Dr. Stan yelled at me. He yelled at me until I started to cry. And then you know what he said to me? He said that I wasn’t even the first person he had made cry that day!”
The next time I went in, I began to notice another side to Dr. Stan. All of his dental assistants skirted around him anxiously. While he filled a cavity, he paused to address the elderly Indian woman that had been assisting him during the procedure. “Clara,” he said calmly. “Why are there no black glasses in this room? I need a pair of black glasses, and you know that there should always be a pair in every room in this office, right? Because I've told you that I need a black pair of glasses in every room how many times Clara? Maybe 100? Maybe more do you think? Well, I need you to go into the storage closet and find me a pair right now, as I’m sure there are more than enough. NOW CLARA!”
Clara nodded, and ran off to fetch his glasses like a beaten puppy. Dr. Stan sighed. “Sorry you had to witness that,” He said to me. “It’s so hard to get these girls to do anything around here.” He paused for a moment and then pointed to the monitor above my head. “Now look at the large hole I just drilled into your tooth!” I shuttered in fear, and for once, was glad I was on his good side.
The last time I went was a couple weeks ago. We did our normal routine where he stares at me forever and forgets my name. After a quick cleaning and checkup, I was told that my teeth looked excellent and that I was free to leave. As I left, he shouted after me “Goodbye my beautiful boy!” A couple days afterwards, I noticing my teeth were hurting. It started as a dull pain in one, and then moved throughout my entire mouth. My teeth still hurt. Every single one of them. I refuse to go back to Dr. Stan though. I don’t know what he did to me, but I’m pretty sure he hurt me on purpose as a ploy to get me back into his office. I’m sure of it. The pain I can live with. Being put molested, murdered, and dismembered with tiny dentist equipment, I cannot.
