Jerusalem Dentists

It was certainly bad enough having a one and a half hour appointment for the second part of a root canal yesterday evening. It was even worse going with two of my kids - Nasty and Young Son.

Nasty tells me on the way there - I read in the newspaper that they found that dentists here...

She paused - and I was hoping she wouldn't say "kill people".

She continued - "...say you have a cavity when you really don't just so they can make extra money."

I was wondering if my dentist would do that - in order to boost his profits. One never knows.

Enter Nasty for her check up. She's 17 and needs braces. She didn't want to "ruin" her looks at 15 but her teeth have gotten worse and she ~really~ needs them now. The dentist, assistant and I looked at her pulling out her tongue ring. It grossed us all out. He looked at me and asked if her boyfriend has as many holes in his face as she does.

He told her point blank - "you have to have better hygiene"

"What's that?" She asked. Seriously.

No one could have been more embarrassed than me, the bad mother, while the dentist and his assistant looked at me with that "How COULD you" look. He then thought for a bit, before chewing me out and asked her the same question in Hebrew.

"Oh" she replied

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Does she have any cavities?"

"No, her teeth are fine, she just needs to see the Orthodontist"

I shot my suspicious daughter a triumphant glance. At least THIS dentist was honest and wasn't going to treat her for imaginary cavities.

And after my Son, it was my turn. How lucky can I get. I looked at the clock while it ticked away ever so slowly. The slowest 1 1/2 hours of my life. I thought of other places I'd rather be at the moment - like sipping coffee at the hotel where Richard Gere was staying, hell - even home with Hubby is more preferable than this.

And then I saw a million little syringes on the table. He puts them into my teeth and asks his assistant - after he uses them on me -

"Do you know what are in these syringes?"

"No" says the assistant.

I manage a groan, thinking for sure they might kill me with an unknown substance in the syringe.

"Alcohol or Peroxide?" asked the dentist.

"I don't know"

That's just great. But it didn't really matter anyways. I managed to survive the treatment. I just thought perhaps in the future it would be better to go to a dentist whose language I didn't understand.