This may end up a long post. I dunno. I am running on almost no sleep and will probably ramble.
I don't like going to the dentist. Who does? But usually there's nothing wrong. Just a cleaning and a quick check and they send me on my way with a bill for a couple hundred bucks. So when money got tight we decided to skip going to the dentist...for 2 years.
Mom ended up cracking her tooth a few months ago and dad had something similar happen to him (shitty old fillings go kaput). My aunt last year ended up getting her eye and teeth taken care of at some charity thing and let us know about one coming up in Lake Geneva, WI. Unfortunately they didnt have the eye stuff because I could really use a new pair of glasses but my prescription makes those fuckers cost $400 so...yeah. But anyway they were doing dental work so mom and dad were going, so why not I should go get a checkup too.
The downside is the doors opened at 5:30 am. Lake Geneva is an hours drive and we wanted to be there at least an hour early, if not two. So 10PM last night I go to sleep...for an hour. Then i wake up and just lay there not able to fall back asleep. Play some Animal Crossing until about 1:30 before I wake everyone else up so we can leave by 2. We're in line by 3AM and WAY the fuck back.People were out there since midnight I guess. If this is what those midnight console launches are like....fuuuuuck that.
Now we are up to the line experience. i am amazed how many people, in line to see a person that is going to root around in their mouths, were smoking. And fucking chain smoking. Dad had to go sit in the car because he is allergic to that and it would literally kill him. My brother also went to the car because hes a pussy. Mom and I braved the smoke and cold to keep our place in line. So from 3 to 5am...thats what we were doing. Almost as bad as the smoke was this group of chain smoking yoga instructor chicks that were the most annoying bitches on the planet. Not a single thing they said, quite loudly, was funny. Just repeating stupid shit over and over. Never ceasing for the entire wait. They sounded like dumbass highschool girls but were clearly out of high school. Ugh, I just sat there and imagined murdering them in various ways.
Eventually the line starts moving at about 5-ish as they take in the first big group of people and start processing them and doing whatever needed done, and after that rush and wait then the line started moving at a normal kind of pace.We got into the building itself about 7 or 8. Fill out a quick form and answer some questions, wait some more, and then the fun begins.
So first, this is in a school and its pretty much a damn maze. But they had tons of volunteers that would personally guide you to various places, and after your visit at each place another volunteer would lead you to the next one. Really, it was the only way to keep that from falling into chaos. It also helped that the vast majority of the volunteers were cute as hell. Hello! "Hello!" Follow me! "Ok!"
So theres several stops along the way so they can quickly divide people up that need just simple shit and more serious shit. Lucky for me I was like "Yeah can you check this one tooth that may be something I dont know?" and the dude looked at it and was like "Nah it looks fine, I dont see any decay. You can just get a cleaning." Wee! So a few stops along the way there and eventually I'm lead into the gym by this totally cute redhead that I wanted to follow everywhere, but that gym was a sight to behold. I didn't really have time to stop and snap pics because I was on the fastrack to get through everything, but there was like 50-60 stations of just cleanings, another 20-30 doing fillings, a section with what my dad said was a good 20 doctors doing tooth extractions and shit. They were even taking wisdom teeth in there. Pretty wild. I got this nice older hygienist to do do my cleaning, who was super nice and we joked around. Everyone was SUPER nice. They wanted to make sure everyone knew that like...come to this thing. This is why we volunteer. Don't get hung up one a weir sense of pride that you will suffer without this care because you can't afford it. It was cool.
So after the cleaning where I got many compliments on my awesome teeth, they passed me off to some dude to lead me out of the place. I wanted another chick to follow but NOOOOOOO. But I guess it was for the best because I would have ended up insulting her or something when I saw some signs that made me laugh pretty hard. So the group doing this is the Mission of Mercy, or MOM. And they had a stations set up to take used tools and swap out with clean ones. So the first sign I see is "CLEAN MOM INSTRUMENTS". I was like hey, what kind of operation is this? Then I saw the "DIRTY MOM INSTRUMENTS" sign and just started laughing...all right! Now we're talking! Then my guide chuckled and tried to explain what MOM stood for like that made it any less funny. Then I grabbed my goodie back of a toothbrush, floss, and a couple travel sized toothpastes (and for some reason they were giving everyone 2 bags of these...I can travel for a good long while with all these little toothpaste tubes now). And that was that.
Then my brother and I had to wait for my mom because she had to have an xray and stuff that took more time, and my dad had to have a tooth pulled and some replacement thingy made? I dunno, but he has to go back tomorrow to pick it up. Luckily you dont have to sit in line at 3am again, just go in and grab it when its ready...sometime after 9. Might go with just to follow more chicks walk around Lake Geneva, its a cool little town. But its a good thing he was able to get all that done here because that would probably be a couple grand worth of dental work otherwise.
What amazes me is how badly some peoples teeth were. Hearing people talk about having 4-5 teeth pulled was not uncommon. And I'm not bragging because I do basically the bare minimum of dental care. I brush once at night mostly, morning brushing usually only happens on vacation. Flossing...I've flossed more in the 2 weeks leading up to today than in the 2 years before that. And I was getting compliments. So if you're not even doing THAT little...come on, man. Its your teeth. They don't grow back. Take a little care of them.
So yeah, that was my adventure. It was interesting, and everyone was like real encouraging to come back next time they do it. We might...but I will plan my sleeping better. God damn am I tired.
