Thursday, February 5, 2009

bright young women, sick of swimmin'

i'm all blogged out. i'll tell you a story and then i'm going to spend some quality time with my book.

went to chinese this morning with jerry and asked bobo about the dentist. i have this little spot that hurts when i drink hot or cold stuff where i thought i needed my filling redone. so bobo gave me the info and i went to the dentist she takes the girls to, which happens to be right down the street from where i live.
me: ni hui shuo yingwen ma? (can you speak english?)
front desk lady: yes, how can i help you?
me: excellent! ..then i explain my issue. she says no problem. come back at 3.

i go back at 3 and the woman takes my health card and hands me a form, all in chinese. she asks if i'll understand her if she speaks chinese.. i say probably not.. so she just talks to me in english with her face literally 3 inches from my face the entire time. i'm not sure what the reasoning was, but i was trying my very hardest not to burst out laughing.

so she takes me to get xrayed which was also like something from candid camera. she had me put my chin on that little chin rest and then bite the plastic stick thing as she adjusted the x ray machine that rotates around your head. she must have moved it up, down, back and forth a good 15 times before she settled on a position. meanwhile i'm just standing there trying not to let go of the stick.

i could tell you a million things about the dentist but the highlight was that he spoke dental english. i told him about the spot that was bugging me and he couldn't find it but he kept saying 'your teeth have natural morphological differences' and then showed me how my teeth have bumps 'so [you] can chew your food' and i tried to politely explain that yes i know my teeth aren't supposed to be flat, but a spot is bugging me.
so he hands me a hand mirror and his poking tool and asks me to find it myself. i did, but he said it was nothing but the 'natural morphological contours'. better luck in july when i'm back in america.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm just trying to think how "'natural morphological contours" comes out with a chinese accent.....

Love, Faj

Anonymous said...

hah! that's awesome. p.s. jim and i talked about you tonight.

Majjy said...

Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate here but most folks have sensitivity to temperature on teeth. Therefore it may not be a filling repair job. Your Taiwanese dentist may have been accurate in his assessment of your situation. Probably not what you'd like to hear huh?

Sorry.
love you,
Maj

megan said...

youu are not a dentist either.

Majjy said...

No. I am admittedly no dentist. In fact on Mike Rowe's "Dirt Jobs" list I would prefer cleaning housekeeping unit kitchens and bathrooms to working on human teeth.

Just me...

Anonymous said...

Megan-I know just what it is and the first time I experienced it was when I was your age. If you brush too dilligently, you can cause your gums to recede, exposing sensitive areas. In the US you can by gel cam, which is actually flouride that you dab on the area. Just be ready for it to hurt like hell for about 10 secs, then you're good to go. Find the tooth that is bugging you and go to the gum line and nuke it with the flouride. I don't know how you'll find it in Taiwan, but even toothpaste will do in a pinch, although straight flouride will work best. Reapply as needed. If you can't find the equiv. I'll send you some from here. love, Aunt Pam