5 O'Clock

“Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

   The air was filled with the sounds of the many nine-to-fivers who had bustled into the restaurants booze promising walls. Sipping my long-awaited liquid tranquilizer I quickly scanned the room.

   Balding men and suit-clad, middle aged women hunched over appetizers in close, but loud conversations about office life; work-life. My nerves, like a bed of exposed hot-wires, were slowly silencing their current with every sip. Vaguely aware that I was covered in the spit of the thirteen patients I had seen in the last eight hours, I tried to smile winningly at my comrade in arms.

   "So how was your day?' I asked, knowing some sordid tale would follow.





  My dark haired companion smiled, gently swirling her own form of strong drink. We had made a routine of this - meeting up at various darkly lit establishments to drink and talk of the traumas of the day. Pulling back her long, dark hair, she took a breath and, rolling her eyes, began. Her story was basically this:

   This morning my doctor had a conversation with an 89 year old man, consisting of a sales pitch on $23,00.00 worth of implants.

   Originally scheduled for a denture consult, the man just stared back in bleary-eyed confusion. His teeth were waving little white flags of surrender, and on his Social Security income it was clear the man was only here for dentures. My doctor, however, lived in the land of best case scenarios, mansions and BMW's. 

   Why isn't everyone signing up for implants, at roughly $5,000.00 dollars a piece?

  The elderly patient (a man who saw the car invented) was listening to the description of the 6 month long process of installing implants like we had just entered a Star Trek convention. I watched in pained silence a 20 minute charade that resembled what I imagine looked like the miscommunication experienced by the first missionaries in a native land.

   Not wanting to waste anymore of what obviously little time this man had left. I tried to find an out, a tactful way to explain to my socially impaired cohort that the milk in my fridge had a longer expiration date than this man and a slight more interest in implants.

   I cleared my throat and softly reminded my Doctor we were scheduled with the next patient 20 minutes ago, hoping my eyes were screaming, "Ta-ta-TODAY junior - wrap it the f*** up!". Then I mouthed under my mask several curse words aimed in his direction.

    The conversation ended much as it had begun. Confusion lay in a thick film throughout the small operatory. The patient desperately inquired again when he would be able to recieve his dentures, now having a half hour of his precious remaining moments wasted, while my Doctor skulked from the room. I briefly explained to my patient all that talk about screws, bolts and surgery was just a medication induced hallucination and we could go up front to schedule his denture appointment.

  Today's Lesson:  Dentists are pathetically ill-equipped communicators. They are really good at details and manual dexterity. Assistants, however, have to shoulder the role of counselor, economic sympathizer and translator often on the fly and with complete strangers. We are the Jack-of-all-Trades on roller-skates required to wear perma-grins while cleaning up human waste. You're welcome.