Waiting Almost 2 Hours at the Dentist

Waiting Almost 2 Hours at the Dentist

This morning, I had a dentist appointment at 10:30.

My dentist is very skilled and very nice and works for a public health fund, which means getting an appointment to see her takes three months, and once your appointment arrives you need to wait as well.

But this morning, things went overboard.

Time after time people who had requested emergency “first aid” appointments were let in ahead of me. And then, around 11:30, when I finally could have gone in, I was nursing Yonatan, so had to let somebody else go ahead of me.

The last time I also had to wait over an hour, and I got angry at the dentist, and things had ended badly. But this time, I decided, would be different. This time, I was going to work on myself…

So I was patient at 11.

I was patient at 11:30.

I was patient at 11:45.

But by 12, steam was coming out of my ears.

By 12:15 I finally got into the dentist’s office. She was apologetic, but my ears were still ablaze.

And then I looked down at my3-month-old Yonatan, whom I was holding in my arms, and realized that he had also been waiting for close to two hours at my side. And he was enjoying himself greatly. Looking around, enjoying my closeness.

And I thought of a story I once heard about a man who was travelling on a train and was running late for an important meeting. So he spent the entire trip standing with his arms pressed against the front wall of the train. When the conductor came through to collect tickets, he asked the man why he was standing in this strange position. And the man explained, “I’m in a rush. I am making the train go faster.”

And that man, I realized, was me.

So this morning I decided two things.

1. I’m switching dentists.
2. The next time I am forced to wait, I will really try to be like my wise baby instead of that man with the tired arms on the train, IY”H.

3 comments

  1. My flight was delayed for hours and hours. Was it 4 hrs? I was travelling alone to meet my sister in law at some mutual destination. She called my husband and was so upset that I had to spend endless hours in an airport terminal. My husband’s reaction was, “it’s not a problem”. He knows how I relish an opportunity to sit down in the middle of the day. Waiting rooms are therapeutic for me. I get to sit. That day in the airport: I read my book, I bought an orange juice (rarely spend money like that) and closed my eyes and just sat. A real treat.

  2. Sheva, totally! Tho it’s different when you r on your way to a holiday and there’s nothing else to do….. And maybe you didn’t have a connecting flight to catch/miss, and you weren’t flying with kids….. We all relish a time to sit without responsibilities but CJ had things to do, places to go, kids to collect, no time to waste…..! I’m amazed that you didn’t demand entry on the basis that you were waiting with a baby, tho. Next time…
    Sometime we need to be more assertive. I turned up to a doctor and was told to wait at a certain door. Didn’t seem like a pediatrician since there were adults waiting. I went to the desk, shep pointed me back. Still, it was off. I went back, asked again for room 10, she was sure? Yes. There were a lot of people waiting. I went back. Please, they say they are waiting for an ortho, you say it’s the kids doctor. Please show me where to wait…. Finally she gets up: oh! They changed rooms, sorry, your doctor is there today.
    All of this took five minutes. I could have listened and sat for two hours. Sometimes you have to nudge a little, israeli receptionists definitely suffer from rosh katan!!

    • JewishMom

      next time I have a dentist appointment I’m going to pay your bus fare from Elad to go with me, OK?? 🙂

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