Tales of mishap on the dental-cleaning front

A day on which a visit to the dentist for a cleaning was possibly the highlight of the day. It was cold – minus 28º – and I am not built for this sort of crap. The cleaning went well, despite my panic at the start. It was scheduled for 10am – a reasonable time for most things – but then, as I was answering an email around 9:10, I noticed on my online calendar that I had written “9am: dentist cleaning” in the calendar, but had scheduled it in for 10. Which was the real time? My dentist is excellent, but the office administration are jumped up little jobs-worths, who have in the past tried to enforce a $75 no-show fee off me when I completely forgot about a routine check up. (In fairness, this hasn’t happened since I tried to demand a $75 late fee from them because an emergency root canal had made the dentist I was seeing at the time 45 minutes late, and I had to go elsewhere for a meeting. Neither they nor I ever paid the fee.) Nonetheless, it creates a certain frisson of unpleasantness, which I am usually keen to avoid. I tried to see if the correct was marked down anywhere else, but couldn’t find any previous bills; Mrs. Ottawacker was in a meeting doing whatever she does; and there was no way of finding out without calling the dentist’s office. This would, of course, be catastrophic should the appointment actually have been at 9am – as it would have alerted them to the fact that I was still at home and had forgotten about the appointment. So, I pulled on my jeans, ran to the car, scraped off the ice and snow, and drove as quickly as I could to the dentist, arriving there around 9:35. When I got there, having made up stories of blood and gore and decapitations in road accidents that had delayed Ottawa’s traffic, I sauntered into the dentist’s office and gave, in my jauntiest voice, the time-honoured greeting: “Hello, I am here for a 10am appointment”.
 
“You’re early,” said the receptionist with a smile.
“Oh, I know,” I answered. “You can never tell with traffic – and I just didn’t want to be late.”
 
And that was the highlight of the day. Other than Ottawacker Jr. wondering if he could eat a dessert out of the trophy he was allowed to bring home for a week. The answer was “no” – but we do have a bowl that fits perfectly inside the rim, so he might have a surprise on Friday, which is our traditional dessert night.