No One Wants to be Seen Getting the Saliva Sucked out of their Mouth

Imagine, if you will, a pediatric dentist office. If you pictured a waiting room with Disney type posters on the wall, collector memorabilia in the form of life sized Pirates of the Caribbean and Nightmare Before Christmas characters and a replica of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion encased in plexiglass, you're on the right track. If you have visions of 1980's video game consoles that include but are not limited to Donkey Kong and Space Invaders, you'd be correct. The office, quite frankly, rocks your socks. Once you've left the waiting room and entered the relaxed, friendly environment of the patient's area, you've entered one open room with a sea of dental chairs each equipped with their own television where your child can view a kid appropriate movie while one of the many dental technicians takes a crack at cleaning your kid's teeth; reminding them of the value of a good daily flossing. And leave you feeling a little guilty that the only flossing they get comes in six month intervals. Ahem.

The room. One open room. Not private areas or stalls. Wide open. Chair after chair after chair. Doesn't seem all bad that you don't have a room to yourself because, hey, you're a kid and kids aren't all hung up on things like privacy when it comes to their mouth. Except that a pediatric dentist office see's patients up to sixteen years of age. And the eleven to sixteen age range might have an opinion about how they're seen by their peers.

For instance, like today, when my twelve year old son leaves the xray room only to encounter one of his schoolmates. Not just any schoolmate, but a peer of the opposite sex. And there she is laid flat with her head in the lap of a technician and a mouth full of dentist. I mean, if you were her would you not just die?! Would you not just want the ground to open up and swallow you, the dentist, the chair, and while we're at it -hell, the tv because you're certainly going to need some entertainment on your current trip to utter humiliation?

Wouldn't it be similar to -and ladies, we've all had days like this- when you make that fateful decision to swing by the market on your way home from the gym. Only to run into your ex-boyfriend from 1992 and there you are sans makeup bearing ass crack and anterior boob sweat with the scent of a fresh workout seeping from your pores and wearing your yoga pants that shrunk two inches in the length and your Frankie Says Relax tshirt? And a box of super absorbent tampons and two packages of double stuffed Oreo's on the conveyor belt?

p.s. The boyfriend from 1992 is interchangeable with that bitch from high school who made your life a living hell. Or the prom queen.