Q&A

Question: How do you make a customer service nightmare worse?

Answer: Get the dentist involved.

For reasons that will soon become clear, when I post the Time Warner Saga in full, certain members of the dental profession have become involved in the aforementioned customer service nightmare.

Yesterday I went to the dentist for a regularly scheduled cleaning. Now, I don’t know anyone who likes going to the dentist, but I am perhaps unreasonably wary of dentists (and doctors). On the following scale, I am definitely over there toward the right:

Love the dentist!----It’s not so bad, and hey, clean teeth!----Strong dislike----Irrational fear/hatred

Then again, perhaps it’s not so unreasonable: they have been known to stick sharp metal objects in my mouth, including, on one memorable (for both of us) occasion, a needle. On that particular occasion, roughly a year ago, I needed a cavity filled. It had been filled once before, but that time they drilled without Novocain (because of my strong anti-needle stance), and apparently that didn’t get the job done. So, my new dentist informed me, we would have to do it again. And no, they don’t make topical Novocain gel.

I might have lunged forward a little bit in the chair while he was trying to give me a Novocain shot. Maybe.

Yesterday, I was hoping he’d forgotten that particular incident, but it seemed he remembered me. In an effort to be sociable (and because, let’s face it, you can’t have much in the way of a conversation when one person has his hands and various sharp metal objects in the other person’s mouth), I asked him why he became a dentist. Also, I was curious. Had he wanted to be one ever since he was a little kid? Was it his childhood dream? No, it turned out, it was more of a practical career choice. He listed several good reasons. Then he added, “And I get to torture little kids! Not many professions you can do that. Priests get arrested for doing what I do! Just kidding,” he paused. “Priests don’t get arrested.”

It is inadvisable to laugh that hard when there are all manner of pointy implements in one’s mouth. Ladies and gentlemen, my dentist, the comedian. Bravo!

On a completely unrelated note, a friend alerted me to the fact that the Get Up Kids are doing a Something to Write Home About 10^th anniversary tour. I am going!

What I’m reading: The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine

What I’m listening to: Something to Write Home About by The Get Up Kids, The Smiths by The Smiths