Friday January 31st, 2014

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: the dentist.

Since I'm sharing the following for informational purposes and not the (limited) dramatics, let me say up front: Max is fine.

Also, let me say that if we'd been able to discover that as quickly and easily as you guys just did, my day would have been much more pleasant.

Anyway. Max has been having a particularly rough go with his most recent tooth. More painkillers, more waking up at night, more chewing on everything in sight. We figured it was just an especially big one, or in an especially tender spot.

Then today we noticed that the tooth directly to the right of his bottom middle teeth, which had been totally fine, was starting to go sideways and a little in front of his neighbour. Which seems to be caused by the tooth coming in next to it, crowding it toward the middle.

We wanted to make sure nothing too serious was going on, so we brought him to our dentist. Who ended up not being in and in fact being out of the office for another week. I cannot be upset by this, since he recently lost a little one of his own. Trust me, there were tears shed in our house when that obituary appeared in the paper.

Anyway, his assistant began calling other dentists in Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton. The vast majority of them were not in the office, and the handful that were did not have room to see us. We finally got an appointment for Monday in Penticton and that was going to be the end of it until then. But then we mentioned how much worse the pain seemed to be with this one and she suggested that we go to emergency in Oliver just to have someone look at it to make sure it wasn't anything too urgent.

After an hour and a half wait, we finally saw the doctor on duty. He reassured us that Max would be fine until at least Monday and that was that. I was never overly worried, as things were not nearly as bad as they were when we took him to emergency in the middle of the night last summer, but it still wasn't a whole lot of fun.

Hopefully Monday will bring good news, but if not may it at least be quick news.

Mine:

While the coffee pot fills with a liquid slightly less poisonous than ricin, he retrieves his collection of silver tools from his desk drawer. Sitting down, he places them one by one atop a black velvet cloth, leaving precisely two inches between each device. He remains there, barely breathing as he admires the craftsmanship of each one, until the coffee is finished brewing.

Then and only then, while carrying a steaming mug the size of a small child, does he go to greet his first patient of the day.

2 comments:

Greg said...

I'm glad Max is ok! And I hope that the dentist on Monday doesn't feel that there's anything to correct (since they're baby teeth and not adult teeth!).
Great editorial, as they always are though: interesting and engrossing, and you spared our worries by letting us know the outcome up front. Nice work!
I like your dentist and his supply of coffee, though I'm a little surprised that he lays his tools out himself. That's a little... sinister really!

The dentist
The dentist picked up the masonry drill and sighed. It made such a loud noise when he used it, and the sight of it in the office drove his more sensitive customers away, often screaming. He depressed the trigger thoughtfully, and the drill whined like a ten-ton mosquito, rageful and bilious.
"Right," he said to the dragon eying him balefully, "let's see this bad tooth then."

Marc said...

Greg - yes, it is a bit sinister, isn't it? :)

Hah, yours had a rather sinister start, but the ending cleared things up nicely. I hope the procedure goes well... for both of them!