No, this is not a click bait title. I’m serious. You are not going to believe what this random woman did in the waiting room of the dentist office the other day. It was nuts.
So my whole family is getting their teeth cleaned and I am sitting in the waiting room, having finished first, when the outside door opens and this woman walks in. I don’t know how to describe her. She seems of average height, and of approximate retirement age. Grey hair. But the most important thing about her is that she is accompanied by a very large, very old dog.
She sits down on the couch opposite me and begins to talk. At first I don’t get that she is talking to me, because I am on my phone trying to defeat Ultron, but after a few moments I realize that there is no one else around, so she must be trying to have a friendly conversation. I put my phone down, I look up at her and smile, and she says “My teeth are TERRIBLE!”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I say, not knowing how else to reply. Luckily I don’t need to say anything else, because she keeps talking.
“It’s because I love CANDY!” She starts vigorously rubbing the dog’s head while she tells me this, and I start to feel slightly alarmed. “I used to eat candy every DAY! I LOVE candy! But it made my TEETH all rotten! Don’t eat CANDY!”
“Yeah,” I agree, “you shouldn’t eat too much candy.” Dang it lady, now I want candy. I start thinking about buying some candy and eating it while she continues.
“A whole BAG of candy, every DAY! For YEARS! That’s why I have TOOTH problems! Eating so much CANDY! WHO’S a good boy?” At this point I surmise that she has adjusted her focus and is now speaking to the dog, so I look back at my phone and smile internally at that amusing outburst. Also, I’m thinking Twix. Definitely getting a Twix later.
Now she stands up and heads out of the waiting room into the back offices of the office, presumably to get her teeth cleaned, if she even has any teeth after all of those bags of candy, and I begin to relax again. My respite is short-lived, however, because she comes right back out again, puts on her coat, and sits back down on the couch. My assumption, because of the coat, is that she is leaving, but I am mistaken. She grabs the dog’s head again and starts inspecting it.
“He’s got SWIMMER’S ear, you know,” she tells me, explaining at length how much her dog loves to swim, even though he has bad knees. I get a lot of information about his knees. I get some information about some of her health maladies as well, with vivid descriptions, although I will not post those here. Privacy and all. I assume from my excellent description of this situation, that one of you reading this may think Oh, yes, I know exactly who Tenor Dad is talking about, and so I do not want to divulge any private medical info. Although if you know her, I’ll bet she has already told you all about it.
Anyway, she gets up at this time and goes into the restroom for a few minutes, so I get another break. But then she emerges with some wet paper towels and sits back down on the couch, dog’s head in hand. The woman flips his floppy ears back and starts to wipe some spotted brown gunk out of the dog’s ears, right there on the couch in the dentist’s waiting room. At this point I feel as though I am being punked.
“Ya GOTTA clean out the EARS!” she shouts at me, working away quite zealously. “Ol’ Dog (not the dog’s real name, but I am keeping it secret for the dog’s privacy) is the only dog I KNOW that could get SWIMMER’S ear in the WINTER! See all this?” She shows me the disgusting paper towel. “It’s ALL gotta come OUT! THAT’S better, ISN’T it dog?” I am now praying that I suddenly need another filling or something so that I can go back into the dentist’s chair and get my face drilled. It seems preferable.
As she starts in on the other ear (“I think it’s from the SNOW!”), I slip into the back rooms to find my family and collect everyone, and by the time I come out again with my children she has finished her public grooming. She brightens up at the sight of my children and tells them “Do you like DOGS? Don’t eat too much CANDY! You’ll wind up like ME! MY teeth are TERRIBLE!”
We got out of there without incident, and there really is no point to this story at all, other than: What?
Thanks for your time. I just had to tell someone.
Photo credit: Omar Omar via Visualhunt.com / CC BY