Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Drop your drawers!

As we were waiting for our turn at the orthodontist/dentist, Joseph and I witnessed a very odd scene. Here we are, waiting, waiting, waiting... you get the picture. It had been a while now, and suddenly, this dentist (I suppose he was a dentist...)dressed in a long, white coat walks out into the waiting room, and looks around. Sitting across from us is this one family: young grandma, young grandpa, young mother, 4 year-old little girl (turns out it was: father, mother, older sister, really young sister--but we won't go into that now). The dentist finds his victim, and strolls over to the father. "Pull your pants down," says he, quite courteously (no one says please or thank you here, its more like, "well, I implied it with my tone of voice, right?"), while staring intently at this guy. The dad looks at him, with a puzzled expression, but decides he should obey. So, he reaches down to his zipper. Joseph and I just stared at each other, befuddled that this man was ready to drop his drawers here, in front of the world. The doctor, slightly ruffled but still acting calm and collected, hurried to intervene: "NO! Not you! Your daughter! We have to give her a shot." Now, the two of us are sitting over here like, "what in the world? Why would they give this little girl a shot, on the rump, at the dentists? Strange people."

So, the little girl--who up until now had chatted away gleefully-- suddenly realized a change in the atmosphere, as everyone jerked their heads around and stared at her. All of them dove at her as of one mind, in one foul swoop. One lady grabbed her legs, the dad her arms, and the other lady reached for her pants. Joseph and I, again, merely sat there, dumbfounded, and trying our hardest not to burst out laughing. The little girl was screaming bloody murder by this time--who wouldn't if everyone suddenly attacked you and began taking your pants off? talk about a trauma!--and it took two of them to drag her off to one of the rooms. The screaming never died down. And when I say screaming, I mean it. Finally, after 15 minutes (it really isn't that far from the waiting room to the little rooms of terror, where they tweak your braces while asking you to explain some deeply personal question, or discuss how to go about colonizing the moon), it died down for a bit. I had been exchanging glances with the older lady, inquiring with my eyes as to why a shot on the rump, at the dentist, of a ll places. Turns out they had to completely knock her out in oder to perform some sort of surgery (poor thing, what could possibly be wrong when you're 4?). Then, as we all thought it had died down, it resumed yet again, full blast. After another 15 minutes, it died down to an occasional whimper.

I, for one, was cheering her on. She sounded just like me--people would say "when I was young and had to get a shot", but I know I'd probably still scream today, if I didn't get such chilling looks from my family--and I totally sympathized with her. GO GIRL! SCREAM! YOU TELL 'EM! Mom, meanwhile, had rang the buzzer downstairs and, when they pressed the button to let her in, she could hear the screams coming from upstairs.

We waited for another 30-45mins, and my tweakage was rather uneventful, and Joseph's oral surgery went well (yeah, poor kid). Of course, we chatted away with the other family, and learned that their eldest (late 20s, married, could have been the 4-year-old's mother) had had her gums BURNT when she was young (like, by a dentist, for a purpose) to fix her teeth. I really don't get how burning a person's mouth will coax their teeth into straightening out, but hey. We can now prove that these barbaric, Middle Ages treatments are still being used in modern-day Spain. (Vaseline and sulphur sound familiar to anyone?) Talk about cultural heritage...

1 comment:

mandrews said...

Wow! Talk about a nightmare at the dentist! I hate shots too!