On dentistry and condescension

I had my root canal this morning and it really wasn't that bad. I brought my iPod and listened to the Fenway playlist I made for Earl and Jess to listen to on their way to the first game of the ALCS last year. It has the National Anthem, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Sweet Caroline, the intro songs for the starting line-up and Josh Beckett (who pitched a gem that night), some hilarious ballads --Manny Being Manny, Dice-K and Okajima, Advice to Grady Little, and Terry Francona--and the classics Tessie, Dirty Water and Merry Merry Merry Frickin' Christmas.

So I was doing fine, mulling over the Coco/Ellsbury problem (or is it a problem?), and who might replace Lugo at short, but Root Canal Guy kept talking to me. Apparently the age of iPodity has not altered his routine of offering friendly banter over the procedure, even when the little device is the only thing keeping his dentalphobic patient from running out of the office in drill-sound induced panic. Now, I might be a total nutcase about the dentist, but I do have manners, so I pressed the pause button and made small noises and gestures in response to his thoughts on development, island vacations, and the weather.

And then, in what must be his standard take-something-you-know-about-the-patient-and-say-something-cute-about-it part of the monologue, he said, "Hey. Dr. H [my regular dentist] lives in Strafford. You should invite him up to milk a cow. Take a picture without him noticing and send it to me. That would be really great." Chuckle. Chuckle.

Now, if he'd only said it once, and if it had been a normal conversation where a comment like this might be chalked up to ignorance and lost in the exchange of pleasantries, it might not have been a big deal. As it was, he was rather pleased with this suggestion and kept talking about it and I had some time on my hands to mull and seethe. Still, it was in my best interest to play nice, so I turned up the volume next chance I got when he was busy with drills and vacuums and some sort of glue-gun-looking thing that smelled like a red rubber ball and filled my sad and empty tooth roots with happy, non-infected plastic. It was over in the nick of time and I was getting out of the chair that I had come to think of as The Rack, when he said it again.

"Dr. H could use it on his Christmas card. Wouldn't that be a sight." And I laid into him, as much my numb and stupid head would let me. "That's jufft great," I said. "Maybe I could cub over in my barn cloves and you coub take a picture of me doing a woot canal. That woub be funny." He looked utterly confused, probably because he wasn't used to patients being snappy with him and also because I think he forgot I could talk. "It's the sabe fing," I told him. "I woubn't let a dentift milk my cows any more than youb let me play wif your drill."

Obviously, it wasn't my finest moment, and I needed to get some fresh air more than I needed to make my point clear. Really, though, what was he thinking? It's one thing to harbor an idea that dairy farming is cute and rustic in an abstract sort of way. It's another thing to share, and belabor, that point with someone whose family does it for a living.

I left there pretty pissed at the suggestion that our work is a cute sideshow. Now that I think on it, though, it seems to me that being a root canal specialist has got to be one of the worst fucking jobs in the world--it's cramped and tedious and no one wants to see you and then you have to talk to yourself, with someone listening, for hours on end. It might actually be funny if my dentist came up and tried to milk a cow. I could introduce him to Charlie. Now that would be a sight.