The Write Perspective

On October 21, 2018 Dad, Mom, Mommi (Grandma) Miller, and I left CA for Phoenix. When we left I was under the impression that we would go straight to Phoenix, I would stay there and clean the house, while Mom, Dad and possibly Mommi would go to Mexico for dentist appointments. 

Mother had other plans for me.      

We drove for hours and once Mom had exhausted all the contacts in her phone, and us, she decided to call the dentist office. 

Mom: “Hello, this is Keturah Sommers calling.” Pause. “I’m sorry but I don’t speak Spanish. No, I said I don’t speak Spanish. No Espanol!” 

After much confusion she finally got someone on the line that did speak English. 

Mom: “Yes, hello. This is Keturah Sommers and I made four appointments for later today.”  

I shot up to the front seat, no easy feat while wearing a seatbelt, and hissed in her ear. “No! You got that wrong!” I was getting a little panicky. “I don’t need a dentist appointment! My teeth are fine, perfectly heathy! MOM! NO!” 

She waved me back into my seat. I’m sure she heard not a word I said. Mothers. 

Before long she hung up, smiling, “How great is that? They’re going to pick us  up right across the border. All we have to do is walk across and go to the dentist!” 

The others expressed their approval. I sank into my seat. It was past time to start dreading it. In my experience if you dread something long enough and think of all the terrible things that could happen the actual experience isn’t as bad. This instance would prove my philosophy wrong. 

First, we got to the border parking lot and almost drove over one of those roadblocks that pops your tires. We circled for twenty minutes and with the combined efforts of four drivers, three backseat and one regular, finally found a suitable place to park. We got out and walked down a cramped sidewalk along with a large crowd of others. 

We finally got to the border security building where one waits in line for approximately two weeks. Upon reaching the counter you show your passport then again wait in line to go outside. It remains a mystery to me why so many people wanted to go to Mexico in the first place. 

All this time Mom kept getting more distressed because we were running late. She needn’t have worried. When we got to the meeting place  only five minutes late, there was no one there.

Well that’s misleading. There were tons of people there, but no dentist van that we could see. It might’ve helped if we had an idea what we were looking for. So Mom called the dentist’s office again, and after even more confusion, she concluded that the van had only one more trip to drop someone else off than we would be next.

Twenty minutes later, a minivan drives up with “Dr. Jose Dentistry” printed on the side. “That’s it!” Mom said.  A cheerful little man was driving. We got in and started driving down streets swarming with people. He honked and swerved in and out of crowds, chattering excitedly in Spanish the whole time. Dad was in the front seat doing a great job of ignoring him; thankfully he’s had lots of practice in this field. Mom and Mommi were also chattering excitedly, and a little worriedly, about what the driver might do to us. They talked Dutch which made me even more homesick for my native tongue. Eventually we arrived at the office and told the driver thank you and good-bye. We went inside and sat in the waiting room while Mom tried to communicate with the receptionist.

After a short wait, I was ushered back to a small room. I lay back in the chair and a woman came in and without a word flooded my mouth with a copious amount of water then suctioned it out before I had time to drown. It felt like I’d experienced a mild, yet frightening version of waterboarding and I would have told her all my secrets if she’d given me a chance. 

She did a few other things related to cleaning then hosed out my mouth again. She left the room, saying something in Spanish to me over her shoulder. I assumed she was telling me I was done so I gratefully left the torture chamber and sat in the waiting room again. “Wow,” I thought, “That really wasn’t bad!” 

Less than a minute later the nurse poked her head into the waiting room, saw me sitting there and motioned me back. She looked very frustrated which did not bode well for me being stuck on a dentist chair under her drill. As it turns out all she wanted to do was gag me to death with the X-ray machine. I gagged. She laughed. I glared. We parted ways with not-so-friendly feelings. 

Then another nurse came and took me to my third room and numbed my face. She was extremely friendly, telling me all about her eleven-year old son with anger issues. She really wished she could send him to the states, but apparently that wasn’t possible, so she was thinking about putting him in the army. While she told me this I tried to look sympathetic. This does not come naturally when the bottom half of your face feels eight times its normal size. 

Eventually the doctor came in and said “Open up!” I stretched my mouth as wide as I could. The doctor started barking orders at the nurse, frequently interrupting himself by yelling “OPEN WIDER” into my frightened eyes. This frustrated him quickly and he  stuffed a huge wedge in my mouth to keep it open. Unfortunately this ruined my plans of mangling a few of his fingers, thus protecting all future clients as well as myself.

No more than five painful hours later, he finished. I wanted to stalk out of the building with dignity but I was thinking clearly enough to realize I’d be lost within twenty seconds of stepping out the door. 

As I waited on the others I tried to become invisible to ensure no nurses pulled me back into their clutches.

I’ve always hated dentists and that experience did not make me think more highly of the profession. The only good thing that came out of it is I am now religious about oral hygiene. For that I am grateful.