Visit to the Dentist

I went to the dentist this morning for my biannual cleaning and checkup. A new duty of the hygienist is to take your blood pressure for who knows what reason before treatment. She had a small, electronic unit that attaches to your wrist and takes the reading. So the hygienist asks me if my watch is difficult to remove. I guess she wanted to take the reading on my left wrist, instead of the right one, which didn’t have anything around it. I told her that the strap had a combination lock on it and that I had forgotten the combination, but the real problem was that the watch was super glued to my wrist.

Well, I didn’t really say that because she looked like someone who didn’t have a sense of humor and in a few minutes she would be poking around my mouth with those sharp dental probes, but I wanted to. I was snickering to myself as I took the watch off and she attached the gadget and waited to see the results. 121/83 was the reading…is that good or bad? Who knows? But she started to clean my teeth so I guess I passed.

Now I wonder why she couldn’t have taken the reading on my right wrist. Maybe she was only certified to take the reading on the left. Or maybe the gadget doesn’t work on the right wrist. I should have asked after my teeth were cleaned but I had forgotten.

Forgotten because I was pondering another thought. I also needed dental x-rays taken and she had placed a heavy, lead lined vest over my chest and shoulders, but nothing to protect my head. I mean, if it is safe for your head to be zapped by x-rays then why bother with that heavy, clumsy, vest? I should have asked that question too, but I had forgotten that one as well. This time I was pondering why it hurts to chew on aluminum foil when you have fillings in your teeth.