Adventures in dentistry

I had a dental check up on Wednesday. It had been a while....we didn't have insurance and I kept putting it off.
Truth be told, I didn't care for my previous dentist. For the two or three times I was there, he flirted constantly. With he hygienists and with me. Despite the fact that I was pregnant. Kinda creeped me out, so I stopped going.
When Ken got promoted last year, I decided that I needed to go back to the dentist. It has been on my to do list for about 15 months now. I finally got around to it on Wednesday.
I picked a new dentist out of the church bulletin. I teach his kids in religious ed and his wife is one of my middle school teachers. I already knew he was a funny man, but when he first saw me there he came in and said, "I am so honored that you have come today."
It turns out that one of my friend's moms also works there, so we had a good talk as she was taking X-rays and other pictures. I have never had a dentist take pictures of my teeth before, but that's what they do! She even had a little mirror to stick in my mouth so as to capture them in all of their glory! But that wasn't even the funniest part of the photo shoot! AS she was getting the camera ready she asked the hygienist to go get the "lip retractors." Now if you are the kind of person that is nervous in the dentist's office, that statement might have freaked you out, but I happened to find it hysterical. I couldn't stop laughing. She tried to put these clear plastic dealies in my mouth to hold my cheeks open so she could take the pictures and I couldn't stop laughing. She has me holding these contraptions and pulling my cheeks out wide and then she asked me to smile! I was lucky I didn't spit all over the office!!

After the photo shoot was done, she handed me a post card to fill out. In six months when it is time for my nest appointment they will mail me this card to remind me what time to come in. Pretty handy, and I've gotten them from the dentist before; but I don't think I have had to fill out my own name and address before. BRILLIANT! Oh, except when I finished I went to click the pen before I handed it back to her and noticed that her pen was not a pen from the dentist office I was currently in. It wasn't a pen from an insurance company. It wasn't stolen from the local bank, and it certainly wasn't a generic BIC. Nope! It was from another dentist across town!! Thankfully not the one I had gone to before. I might be in trouble if he found out I had switched. She told me that people had been using it all day and no one else had noticed. Well I am surprised that I noticed with all the tears in my eyes from the "lip retractor incident."
After the preliminaries were taken care of, t was time to get down to the nitty gritty. You know? That gritty stuff they clean your teeth with?! Love it!! Not really-it gets between my teeth and it makes me drool. Then I have to try not to swallow it while waiting for the hygienist to take the suction thing off of my tongue and let it do its job. I got my teeth all clean and shiny and then Dr. Wright came in to check my teeth over. He said I had the most beautiful mouth in all of Rockingham County. Ken agreed, but didn't care for him making the assessment. :)
I also complemented him of the choice of bib color they had made. I had a lovely lavender colored bib to go with my purple shirt. He caught on rather quickly and said that they had a closet full of hundreds of different colors. His hygienist commented that they have a camera on the waiting room so they can pick out an appropriate color before you come back to the exam room. I guess I will have to make a really interesting choice of shirt color when I go back.
Do you think they will let me borrow Mr.-Across-Town-Dentist's pen again to write that on my postcard??