Al Dentista

I chipped a tooth last week. There's not a great story behind it; I just bit into a piece of chocolate with nuts, and that did it! Naturally, I couldn't wait 4 months to return to the US and get it fixed. Hence, I would have to face the dentist here in Italy.

I went to the administrators at school, and they set up an appointment for me. It was this morning. They guaranteed at least one person there would speak English. That made me more comfortable.

As I walk to the office, I'm told to look for a daunting grey door on the side of a busy street. Excellent! But that was precisely what it was. An indistinct door with a small sign on the side. I don't know how I found it, but I was lucky I suppose. I walk in to an empty room of chairs and magazines. No secretary, no check-in. I see two doors, one is labeled "Toilette" so I open the other. It's a hallway with dentist rooms, and a nurse got on to me and told me to wait in the other room...in Italian. So I waited for approximately three minutes.

The same nurse came back out to get me, and I told her I was a student from Umbra, but that didn't phase her. She sat me in the operation chair without me even telling her my name! The dentist comes in, asks me what happened, leans the chair back, and starts drilling. I couldn't very well ask if there was anyone who spoke English in the office while drills were buzzing in my mouth.

He did his thing, fairly well I'm assuming from the lack of pain on my end. When it came time to pay, I entered my name, birthday, and home address into their computer. That's it. Paid in cash, and I left. The entire ordeal took a maximum of 20 minutes.

Lessons learned from my dentist visit today:
1. Magazines are the quintessential reading material for doctors' offices everywhere.
2. It must be a universal requirement to be young and beautiful to become a dental hygienist.
3. Italians don't waste time when it comes to medical issues.
4. When in doubt, consult the bilingual dictionary.