visit to the dentist

I have a few stories to tell about my adventures here in Spain but have been too busy to share them with all of my 2 of my readers. So sit back and enjoy another installment of...

El Americano...perdido!!!!

So Carme and I arranged to have our annual dental teeth cleaning appointments back to back. That way we can go together and spend more time together. Or is it because Carme hates to drive and I would be the one driving? Why drive yourself when you can get Spencer to do it. There is a dentist here in Tossa but for some reason...we were going to Girona (40 km away).

When Carme and I first started dating, what seems to be 100 years ago, she never ever wore a pair of jeans. She was appalled at American women and their love for denim. She even made fun of the people who wore jeans with a jean jacket, especially if the two articles of clothing did not match in color, style or texture. But what does Carme know...she still laughs at people who wear holiday sweaters. She was forever in slacks or a skirt, like a real lady should be. I was mystified by her European ways of fashion...I was love struck! She clearly knew something I did not know. This is how she hooked me! Eventually she broke down and bought a pair and now she loves them.

Well I have been here in Spain for 9 months and I have a news flash...
EVERYONE in this country wears jeans! There aren´t a pair of slacks to be seen in a 10 kilometer range. The teachers at Alex’s school all wear jeans to school. I am not talking about your basic everyday Levi´s. I am talking the faded ones that look like you slide into home base time and time again on your stomach. Carme chalks it up to a change in fashion. Sure she had been in America 10 years so I would imagine anything could change in 10 years.

The point of this rant is that when we walked into the dentist´s office...or any professional office for that matter, everyone wears jeans. The only time I have not seen jeans was in a bank but the only person not wearing them then was the janitor. The rude and unreceptive receptionist at the dentist office was wearing jeans. The dentist was wearing jeans! Everyone in the waiting room was wearing jeans. Yes, Carme was wearing jeans but I was wearing shorts...not jean shorts...khaki. It´s like perpetual casual Friday´s in this country. Every day is Friday it seems. I even saw a cop wearing a matching jean uniform. Woah.

Anyhow, that´s not the best part. Carme went in to get her teeth sharpened first as I sat in the waiting room counting the ratio of jean wearers to non jean wearers. If there were a war tomorrow...the khakis would be extinct in 5 minutes. Just then Carme came around the corner to let me know it was my time after the dentist picked out a new sharpening stone for my larger teeth. Carme stayed in the room with me to translate. I have never felt intimidated at the dentist but in a different language...I might have unknowingly agreed to have all my teeth pulled out in Spanish or something.

Everything was pretty much routine and, translation aside, I pretty much got the hang of her comments and instructions. The only difference is that back home, my hygienist would call in the dentist after the cleaning and he or she would inspect the work that was done. Much like the crew boss at the end of the line in the movie Carwash. You know the person doing the final inspection of your car before you are presented you newly cleaned vehicle.

The last thing I had to do in the chair was definitely the most amusing thing I had ever experienced when it came to my dental health. The hygienist coated my teeth with some special Turtle Wax or something and instead of polishing...she put a mouth piece in my mouth. I was puzzled at first as I initially thought I had fell asleep in the chair and was dreaming I was in Rocky XXIIV. I desperately hung to every word this woman was saying to me to see if her intentions now were to punch me in the mouth and I needed the protection.

She then explained to me she needed to dry my teeth

...long pause...

You need to what?

This was turning out to be more like a carwash then I had imagined. She then took what looked like the exhaust on the back of your standard clothes drying machine and strapped it to my mouth and quickly left the room like a hair stylist would do when they used to put my grandmother under the hair dryer at her local beauty salon on early Saturday mornings. Instead of air blowing into my mouth, there was this low suction pulling air from my mouth. It was not enough pressure to suck my cheeks into my jaw line but just enough to cause air to rush in my nose and out my mouth. I burst into an uncontrollable laugh at the feeling this machine was giving me. I could not contain myself. It was like biting into a Peppermint Patty. Carme watched in amazement as I turned several shades of purple trying to control my laughter. She was not aware that I was laughing and thought I might be suffocating as my eyes grew larger and filled with tears. And if anyone was ever in close proximity of me when I am really tickled, I howl when I laugh that hard. It sounds much like a low guttural moan of a cat in heat.

The machine doing the "ventilating" gave off a low hum so initially; Carme could not hear my laughter under this Hannibal Lecter mask. All I could think of was if my nose were stuffed up from a cold and no air could pass thru my huge nostrils, would my face implode from the pressure of the suction. First my nose would cave in taking in my upper palette and then the rest of my unusually large head until I was left with nothing. I cried with laughter even harder at that visual. I was now hysterical with laughter. Just then the hygienist was within ear shot and out of the corner of my teary right eye, I saw her panicked face as she lunged for me in the chair and dismantled the harness from my mouth.

Relief fell over the room as they both realized I was laughing. I tried to explain that I was laughing due to the rush of wind coming thru my nose and out of my mouth and how it tickled so much. Carme, embarrassed and rethinking her life with me, explained that I am incredibly ticklish. The hygienist just put on a fake smile and nodded her head as if she understood. But then again, I think she was relieved I was not dying in her seat this morning.