Anti-dentite

I'm so mad at my Dentist (may he R.I.P.), but not really.  I love my dentist.  Sometimes I feel like the deranged girlfriend of my dentist and I hate it.  In my head I still picture us together on center st. in Orem just looking out the window and rinsing with fluoride just like he taught me.  I miss the small talk we used to have throughout the years about what year in school I was and we both couldn't believe how big I was getting.  I was there through the boring years when you just had to stare at the ceiling and rejoiced for my dentist when he had televisions installed in each cube and you could watch pictures of people's before and after smiles.  Sure, we had our ugly moments involving cavities and lectures on flossing more, but he always left me with a goodie bag to let me know he cared.  

Then one day I fell off the insurance wagon and suddenly he wanted to charge me money to let me see him.  Money to let me see him!  We had been together for soo long.  Didn't he care if I got gingivitis suddenly?  Or what about a root canal?  Would he only care if I payed him everything in my savings bank?  I wanted to counter with "but we have your daughters wedding announcement on our refrigerator!!!  How many patients can you say that about?  Huh?  Huh?!".  But I couldn't do it.  I was forced to wait behind a desk and communicate second hand through the receptionist. 

And the worst part was that I could still see a peek of the world I had been tossed out of without so much of a glance.  There they were, all the blessed patients happily being buffed and flossed in their cubicles of light never knowing that I had ever been there.  We used to be a family my dentist and I.  We never had doors and he kept all the pictures we ever took together.  I couldn't bear it any longer so I skipped town...permanently. 

And today I was reminded of the insurance restraining order I had back in Utah as I waited 2 1/2 hours to see a Dental student at the free clinic at Ricky's school.   Oh the fall from grace.  The indignity!  I used to get right in.  They expected me.  This time I had to wait until I was finally admitted and then they took my blood pressure and weighed me and finally poked my sensitive tooth with an ice pick to make sure it was still alive.  It was and it... hurt.  It hurt almost as bad as missing my dentist.  But it is I who will have the last laugh when I show up next month on center st. in Orem and demand that he fix me up for free - or at the very least for very, very cheap because this whole mess was his fault.  

I guess he figured if he couldn't clean my teeth then no one else could, so he messed up on purpose just to see me again.  

Oh Mr. Dentist...you shouldn't have (giggle).