Tuesday, May 01, 2012

At The Dentist's

Spent the early part of the day preparing for my lunch guests: Checked my supplies, went to Shop-Rite for a few items, vacumned, and cleaned the kitchen floor.
In the afternoon, I went to the dentist, Dr. P., and whoa Nellie! what a character!  His office, a converted house and quite large, is filled with all kinds of memorabilia--most of them not exactly antiques, maybe, but items like old dolls, movie posters from the forties, depictions of the Titanic before it went down (heh), and so on.  Interesting, but also a bit weird.
Actually, I was there only to get my teeth cleaned, which was done by a young woman from Russia (don't ask), who first took x-rays.  Doc then came in and chatted.  His topic was the odd nicknames for states, especially the negative ones--e.g., "Tarheel State" for Tennessee.  He then segued into hockey teams to arrive at his major point:  the New Jersey Devils.  He said, "What if a hockey team was named 'Child Molestation,' wouldn't everybody be shocked and horrified?  Wouldn't they gasp and cry out and cover their faces?  Yet they name a sports team for the very personification of evil--the devil!  He is the one who causes all the ills of the world, he is humankind's worst enemy..." and so on and on.  I was struck speechless for a time, but did mange to respond enough to realize he was dead serious.  I was nonplussed.  Obviously, this is a very religious man who purely believes the devil is a living entity "prowling the world, seeking the ruin of souls."  The last rose up in my mind easily, as I heard it as part of a prayer at mass all though my early and middle years.  I always pictured, in the days when I believed in such things, a kind of animal-like person, but vaguely shaped like a human, whose skin was leathery and red, striding through a sleeping town at midnight with a mean sneer on his face.  Presumably, Dr. P. has a similar mind picture, which to him is not a vague idea conjured up in a child's mind, not a painting, but is real.  
The guy is a bit odd-looking, too.  I'm pretty sure he wears a wig--his full, heavy, perfectly black, slightly wavy hair put me in mind of the Elvis wig Neil G. wore for Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Coat.  Dr. P. is very much overweight, and it's clearly mostly flab; he looks as if he has pillows stuffed under his clothes.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure he's nuts.  Will I go back?  Oh, absolutely, I haven't been so entertained for years.   

1 comment:

iloveac said...

Tell that eccentric doc that Tennessee is the 'Volunteer' state. The UNC basketball team are the 'Tarheels'.

Enjoy your visits --at least he isn't scary, or is he? ;-)

Wednesday

It was quite an enjoyable day after all the must-do-this, can't-find-that of the last few.  Changed the bed, washed the sheets, and jump...