June 26th!
How inspired is to wake up with the sound of my husband’s snoring in my ears. He has amazing lungs! Even with that auspicious beginning, today is going to be one of the most remarkable days in my life. Today, at the local high school I am going to receive an award, something like a “Nobel Prize” from the city of Needmore. By the way, I am a motivational speaker who has been working with very unenthusiastic groups of professionals. It’s so hard to show them the positive side of life. What a bunch of complainers! I must say that the prize I am going to receive today is not about my professional work. I have been volunteering in the community for many years, by helping youth groups to engage in more constructive activities. My philosophy is based on the belief that positive thoughts attract the best to your life. Actually, this is going to be the theme of my speech today.
So, it’s time to get up. My honey is exceptionally noisy this morning – snoring, grunting, sneezing, and scratching – a symphonic cacophony. It is better leave the room to find peace and some “fresh air”. All these distractions are interfering with my concentrate on my optimistic thoughts. Hmmm, let’s see what else is scheduled today…
Damn! I have to go to the dentist first thing this morning. I just forgot that I need to clean up these awful yellow teeth. I have to quit smoking one of these days. This appointment is going to screw up my entire day. I am already irritated and feel very sorry for myself. I wish I didn’t have to go. I always feel so lousy after a visit to the dentist, and not only that, I don’t like the one we have here in Needmore. He has a merciless expression on his face, and a big fat nose which steals air from everybody. I call him Dr. Charm, since he looks like Shrek in white pajamas. He is young, but who said that youth is synonymous with beauty?
Sadistically, the weather was gorgeous. Why doesn’t Nature feel my pain? Looking at the clock in the bathroom, I saw the hands pointing to, “Oh my
gosh… 9! My appointment is at 9, I am already late! No time for a shower! No time to clean up the bathroom! Got to run…fast! No doubt it was going to be one hell of a day.
I jumped into the car and floored it. Shoot! The air conditioner is busted. I took a short cut and got there exactly at 9.05 a.m. Luckily, the distance between any two places in Needmore takes no longer than 6 minutes and 37 seconds, so I did a good job breaking the town speed record. It took me awhile to catch my breath, before I could check in at the reception window. My face was dripping wet and my hair, well, let’s not talk about that. The receptionist jumped a little when I appeared at the window. She gave one of those dirty looks that receptionist are so famous for. Oh… my clothes!
“What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a patient wearing an inside out white t-shirt, red and green pajama bottoms and an old pair of tennis shoes? It’s a fashion statement!” I thought, looking defiantly at her.
Heavenly, that’s the name on her tag, gave me directions to the examination room. It sounded easy enough, but the short walk turned out to be a real adventure. She said I should go to the end of the long corridor and turn left. Immediately after that, turn right and find a room with 4 doors where I was to choose the blue one, second from the right. After passing through that door, there was another corridor with patients on both sides; “Don’t worry about the screams, crying and whimpering” she advised. “Some people are just afraid of dentists”. A dental hygienist would be waiting for me.
As was always my luck, I misunderstood the directions she gave me and I found myself a witness to a horrific scene. I could see a person’s face, whose wide open mouth contained all sort of silvery tools. Someone dressed in what looked like a painter’s smock was smiling and innocently playing with them. The person in the chair seemed paralyzed and was unable to say a word. I would be in that same situation very soon. Poor me! I sat down in a greenish chair next to him. I looked around the room and was overtaken by so many before and after posters of tooth decay and diseased gums. I made myself as comfortable as I could, anxiously waiting for…. THE DENTIST.
Then he arrived at my chair. The dentist, Dr. Charm, affectionately known as the Giver of Pain, sensed I was a bit uptight and tried his best to break the ice. He started gabbing something about the frosty weather we can get here even when it’s hot in the summer. Have you realized that all over the world, the weather is the favorite subject when you have absolutely nothing to say to a person? Honestly, at that moment, I could care less about the weather. I became blind and deaf to Dr. Charm and crawled into my own little world. My ears picked up a creepy humming sound being emitted by all the strange tarantula-like machines in the room. The other imprisoned patients all around me were…well…sucking.
My attention returned to Dr. Charm’s weather babble. The last thing on my mind was the damn &^#*!@ weather! What really caught my interest as I lay there looking like Metal Mouth, the newest superhero, was the funny picture on the wall. The dog in this picture appeared to be performing some cute movements, like it was dancing.
“My dog Sasha could do much cuter acrobatic moves; no contest!” I thought, as the proud guardian I am.
While I was thinking about such significant thoughts, an odd lady, I mean, a really strange one, almost as weird as Dr. Charm, popped up with a thing-a-ma-jig to sucking out the water from my mouth. As this was happening, Dr. Sci-Fi, with his big glasses resembling some sort of face helmet, tried to calm me down with even more small talk. He put additional machinery inside my mouth, including a large thin needle. I could feel it piercing deeper and deeper in my gum, penetrating each layer of my pour nerves. The first thought that came into my mind, after the excruciating pain finally subsided, was how I would be able to give an acceptance speech during my scheduled ceremony with half a mouth, and so I did what anyone in my place would do, I panicked.
Dr. Weirdo disappeared and left me there on the torture chair with my mouth full of wires and other strange objects. After a couple of minutes, he returned with his odd looking assistant to resume their construction work on my mouth. I chose to close my eyes at that very moment; otherwise I think I would have lost it completely. Put yourself on my shoes. I had, on my left, an escapee from a horror
movie, and on my right, the Dentist. I could not have had a worse Monday morning. Thankfully, there was classical music playing in the office, soothing my savage breast.
I was counting the minutes when I could finally get out of there. Finally he said the magic words “You are done” and when I looked around to politely say “thank you” he was not there anymore! He must have disintegrated, right in front of me! The only creature left was Ms. Poltergeist saying, the usual, “Have a nice day!”…on cue from page 5 out of the DOCTOR OFFICE PHRASE MANUAL.
“Oh, sure,” I thought, “I will have a wonderful day as soon as I get rid of this numbness and feel a little bit less moody….”
And now, it is check out time. The nightmare was almost over. Hold on; a few more minutes of this hell. I was expecting an apology instead of the bill. Evidently, I was wrong. The only problem was that I forgot to bring my wallet when I left home. I tried with half a mouth, since the other half was numb, to explain the situation to Ms. Heavenly, the receptionist, but she didn’t care. I mumbled my defense as the best as I could. ” We will bill you later”. Thank God!
I ran to the parking lot wanting to arrive home quickly to change for the ceremony that was to begin in an hour. Wishful thinking… my left front tire was flatter than a pancake!
Bio and Info - Grace Araujo Kolman is from Brazil and presently lives in USA.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Language Arts, Literature, and a Master’s in Human Science. Grace works as a writer and translator in several languages. To contact her please write to ( gkam34@hotmail.com )
Tags: award, dentists, funny, lecture, school, Stress, volunteer
