Your Shitting Me? Dentist? No Way! This Place Has To Be A Zoo!

I realize my time is almost up with pediatric dentists. It will be a sad day, they give out the good goodies. But for now I am still making them suffer the indignity because dammit I want that free McDonald's coupon, the free huge size box of toothpaste, the floss and a the new toothbrushes every time. Double that and you rack up on the goodies. Hell this time we even got two free baseball caps (more on those later).

We pull up and of course I am armed with my headphones, music on my phone and my book. I really wanted to wear the full face helmet I ride the Harley with my friend but he kept telling me it was overkill. He, I might add, did not have to go to this horrible place full of horrible children. As soon as you walk into the downstairs door you are bombarded with murals of jungle animals. That could be insight on the dentists point, a kind of warning so to speak. These murals follow you all the way up the stairs the closer you get to the top the louder it gets. Your stomach starts to sink because you just know you aren't going to be blessed with an appointment where no one else is there or even just one or two of the little creatures. As soon as you open that double door and walk in your assaulted by sound. I swear to God it looked like someone had just stepped on an ant bed and the ants were running everywhere. Immediately, The Devil's Advocate says "Mom, be nice, try not to insult anyone in here until we get done and back to the car, once we are gone you can do what you want". He has no faith in my ability to control myself. The Demon Seed says "Your wasting your breath, just get prepared she won't be able to hold out that long" I did really well all the way to the reception desk, I pushed down the urge to step on any little ants that got in front of me and didn't say one bad thing to them. It didn't last long. At the reception desk, I checked them in and the fun started. At least for the ants. While standing there checking them in one starts clutching at my legs with the nasty fingernails and dirtiest face I have ever seen. I wasn't really mean about it, I simply said......OK so I said it loudly,  "Honey, I think you need to go find Mommy, she may have plans on cleaning you up a little before you go visit the nice dentist." Still proud because I had called the dentist nice and didn't scare the child. The entire waiting room is decorated for children.  Do they not realize grown people have to actually bring those ants in? I'm not very tall at 5'1" so the low benches weren't all that bad. But Demon Seed and The Devil's Advocate are 6'2" tall, it was a struggle for them but they did look rather cute sitting there with their knees up to their chins. I wanted to take a picture of them but I have a pink rhinestone cover on my phone and I was afraid the creatures running loose would see something shiny and attack in an attempt to gain control of it. It would have gotten nasty because NO ONE is going to take away my fantasy that I look just like Paris Hilton when I carry it. The boys know it's coming so they don't want to sit on the same midget bench as I am. Silly boys, like I can't make my voice carry across a room of screaming ants if I want to embarrass them. Instead I just squeezed in between them, hey, they are a lot bigger and we could quickly see safety was going to a concern, I wanted protection.

The ants just kept streaming in the door as if following an invisible line of cookie crumbs. I counted them at one time out of sheer boredom. 32 ants in the room, running , screaming, fighting, coming up to you wanting you to read to them. I must have been in there on "dirty kid day", I swear out of all those ants there was maybe only two of them that I would have taken out in public, let alone to the dentist. I was forced to tell  two of them that would not leave me alone that all the animals on the wall came alive and ate them if the kids didn't sit with their parents and be quiet. They quickly scrambled back to Mom and Dad's lap. Well Dad's lap, I don't think Mom had actually seen her lap in many years so she only had knees to sit on. Two down, thirty to go. I don't even want to hear how cruel I am, it was a matter of survival at that point and to be honest I would not have cared if the animals did eat them.

I put my headphones in, it didn't drown out the noise but did give me some cover for calling them all names under my breath, they thought I was silently singing along with the song. Then one little ant ran up and pulled off my headphones so to preserve them I put them back in my purse while quietly telling the child that the dentist really didn't like little kids with the name of Melissa and had made that day "Hurt All Melissa's Day" (I had heard her parents call her this about a thousand times by then) so I hope he wasn't too hard on her back there. Her Mom apologized and I informed her that I thought Melissa and I had an understanding and were all good with each other now.

I go to reception and ask how much longer was it going to be so I could plan my admission to the mental ward of the local hospital for immediately after. She tells me about another hour. I inform her that any longer than 30 minutes and she was going to have to take me in the back and share some of that nitrous oxide that I knew they were not just giving to the children, there is no physically possible way to work in that place without running back for a hit of the nitrous at least once an hour. She promised me 30 minutes or a hit off the nitrous.

I go back to "patiently" wait for that 30 minutes to pass when the door open and in SHE comes. I thought there was something familiar about the child even though I couldn't see her face because of the dirty matted hair that covered it, and the goosebumps on my arms tell me I have reason to fear her. Then Demon Seed leans over and says "Hey look, it's the girl from the movie "The Ring!" This child even walked like the little girl in that movie, all joking aside she was a creepy ass little kid. Of course this is when they call mine to the back. I was wanting to grab each ones leg and scream " No, don't leave me here, I think I rewound the DVR a couple of times last night and I know I gave a movie to the neighbor to watch!" Instead I curled up in a fetal position on the midget bench and didn't take my eyes off of her, praying for the dentist to hurry and call me back to discuss the exams.

Then my kidney's kick in and I have to go to the bathroom. I know I shouldn't have left the book there but I couldn't hold my purse, the book and feel my way along the wall while keeping my back to it so I wouldn't have to take my eyes of the Ring Girl at the same time. While in the bathroom a baby, kind of hard to get mad at a 12 month old, real easy to get mad at the Mom that watched him do it, chewed the entire corner off of my hardbound book while I was in the bathroom. Not just a little nibble or two the damn kid literally ate a corner of the book.  So I kept quite when I saw the child next to her dig through her purse while she is dealing with the baby, come out with lipstick and paint the bench and her own clothes and face with Mom's Monkey Butt Red lipstick. I rather enjoyed it actually.

Finally the God's shined upon me and I was called to the back. I am told how beautiful their teeth are, how perfectly straight and in alignment with the jaw and how fortunate that they had and  never will  needed braces. The Devil's Advocate's filling is filled so all is good there. Demon Seed has to have the baby tooth pulled that refuses to come out on the 30th. Both are sparkly clean and after the 30th I will have a full 6 months before I have to come back. Next time I am coming armed with hockey sticks, knee and elbow pads and asking for the "Clean Kid Day" for appointments and can they please just give me my shot of nitrous oxide as soon as I walk in instead of waiting until things escalate. We get our bag of goodies and the boys head for the car, afraid some other child might approach me and knowing I was at the breaking point to make a scene. They didn't want to be present. Then the assistant comes running from the back telling me the boys forgot their hats and hands me two brand new local team popular baseball hats. I think to myself that the dentist has really stepped up on the goodies and wondering if I can lie about their ages so they don't have to move next door to the adult side in eight months.

I get in the car, for once I am allowed to drive and get half way home before I remember the hats in the bag. I tell them both that the dentist gave them hats this time too. They open the bag and said "Uh, Mom, they made a mistake, we saw the man and his kid next to us wearing these hats, they must have forgot them and just thought they were ours"  I told them both I was NOT going backing to the well where the Ring Girl was and to enjoy their new hats. In unison they both say "But Mom, they belong to someone!" I, of course,wanting them always to do the right thing said: "Of course they do, they belong to you, now put the fuckers on, smile and show off those beautiful teeth! He probably isn't brave enough to go back and get them anyway." I stepped on the gas to pick up speed just in case he might be following us to reclaim those hats.