Today followed the by-yearly trip to the dentists which was, as I'd expected, as awful and unpleasant as I'd guessed it would be. The dentists is not something that I ever think I've seen eye to eye with, ever since childhood as far back as I can remember I've hated it with a passion.
There's something about the way the building smells as soon as you walk through the door that puts me at unease, a sort of clinical musty smell mixed potently with a foul sweaty odor that's only made worse by the mountains of air fresheners and strong smelling flowers dotted strategically around the surgery . The next thing you notice is the staff, medical receptionists are, in my opinion, among the most bitter, cynical, arrogant and generally unhappy people you could ever hope to meet. When I arrived I was greeted at the desk by a woman in her mid 50's (at a guess) but she could have been 80 or older from a distance, the only presentable thing about her was a disturbingly unfitting blue uniform that she was wearing over a kind of vomit colored turtle neck sweater, I don't think I've ever seen a person look so uncomfortable in their own skin, but having said that this is the stereotype for a lot of medical staff now-a-days (and not just receptionists either), anyway, I wasn't there to see her.
After sitting in a foul smelling claustrophobic waiting room for 10 minutes listening to the only available channel on the tiny television in the corner (some awful learning program for children, you know the type of thing, presented by some creep in a stripey sweater called Nigel) I was called in to the surgery. Now, contrary to everything else, I actually rather like my new dentist, I'd never met him before but I was pleasantly surprised to find that unlike the rest of the staff he seemed quite cheerful and happy to be there, not something often seen in dental surgery's! A rather well spoken fellow with a french accent.
Not that this put me at ease at all, the overall experience was still terrible, something that I'm glad I won't have to endure for another 6 months! Luckily, according to the french bloke, I'd been a good boy and looked after my teeth enough for him to be happy for me to leave without any kind of dentist style death sentence for staining my teeth with tea and chipping them on my old lip rings, oh well, like he said "Eh vot can jou do?".
