doin' time in solitary

so i took thing one to the dentist the other day. at 4-1/2, she's a veteran; she started going at age 3 when she fell on her face so hard, her tooth and gum turned gray and we were told the tooth might be abscessing. mercifully, it was not. and since we took her to a children's dentist, it was all fun and kites and stickers and picking out presents at the end. 

since then, she's been every six months, which at her age is practically a geologic time period:  a vague, misty era waaaaay back beyond memory.

so when i told josie it was time for another visit, i reminded her of the fun, fun, fun that was in store. i must have really sold it, because she told people, "i get to go to the dentist tomorrow!" (did i mention i used to work in public relations?)

now, josie is a bit, shall we say, dramatic. think of e.t. running around waving his hands in the air, and you get a pretty good mental picture of how she reacts to anything she deems traumatic:  immunizations, thunder and lightening, running out of goldfish crackers, being unable to locate a desired ball, mommy wanting to pee before sitting down to read 14,000 children's books aloud, life.

i try to be sympathetic, because she comes by it honestly. when i was a kid, woe was me. my aunt called me sarah bernhardt because of my penchant for histrionics, and my mom would narrow her eyes and hiss, "i hope you get one just like you." 

in my defense, i tended more toward the sullen and sulky kind of dramatics:  slumping through the house, glowering, and slamming doors. which i'm sure was incredibly annoying, but at least not terribly loud.

josie, however, likes to get her shriek on. the moment she sat in the dentist's chair, she started to rev up. chair going up and leaning back? shriek. teeny mirror inserted in mouth to count teeth? shriek. brushing with bubble gum-flavored toothpaste and tiny, tickly brush? shriek. flossing? double shriek.

the climax came with the fluoride treatment. when the handsome man and i were kids, we later reminisced, this involved sitting with trays of revolting goo in your mouth for what seemed like days, not daring to move a muscle lest said goo trickle down your throat and make you retch. when it was finally over, you were sternly warned not to eat or drink for about a month or the fluoride wouldn't work and you'd have to do it all again.

wanna know how they do fluoride now? they paint it on the teeth with the world's eentsiest brush in about 10 seconds, and that's it. as soon as the saliva hits it, you can eat or drink. 

but josie couldn't care less if my teeth walked 10 miles uphill both ways to school when i was a kid. to her, the fluoride treatment was very deliberately designed to kill her. my god, the screams! she sounded like a medieval saint being martyred in some odd and gruesome way. and since the dentist's office is set up as a big, open space with many chairs for many kids, the sound it did a-travel.

when the appointment was all over (15 minutes tops; seemed like an hour), the girls played with toys in the waiting room while i talked to the gal at the future appointments desk. i mentioned that thing two will need to be seen next time as well, since she'll be 3 by then. "the hygienist said i could schedule the two appointments at the same time, and the girls could sit next to each other," i said.

"hmm," she replied. "it says here they want to see josie in the 'quiet room' next time. did she have some trouble today?"

yep, she's going in the hole. being thrown in the box. visiting the pound. being given the shoe. doing time in solitary. 

cue the harmonica.

p.s. in fairness to josie, i probably should mention that when i was a kid, i once locked myself in my dentist's bathroom for an hour and refused to come out. and in fairness to me, this was the same dentist who once DRILLED MY TONGUE because he was too busy flirting with his hygienist to pay attention to the job at hand. jerk.