How the Witch Doctor Ruined My Dentist Appointment
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah ...
This essay was originally ran on July 23, 2024. on the
Substack.
I had such an outrageous experience at my dentist's office yesterday that I needed to write it up and share it with you. This is a true story.
Yesterday, I was supposed to have two cavities worked on. I understand that having cavities filled is not a big deal and that most people find it akin to getting a haircut. But I, a person who happens not to like people getting in my face with a bunch of power tools (weird, right?), am in the middle of something of a dental makeover, and I've been going to the dentist about every two weeks.
Last time I went in, one of the seven numbing shots administered hit a nerve, and it felt like my face was on fire. I was already keyed up, so when it tripped that nerve, I yelped and flailed. I couldn't help it. It was as if I were trying to light a cigarette while inside a Gravitron, and had ended up lighting my lips and nose instead.
The dentist had scolded me as if I were a small child, and I was both terrified and humiliated. This time, though, I was ready.
I took an extra half of a beta blocker, then piled the max dose of my anxiety meds on top of that. So I was determined to be cool. Implacable. Imperturbable. Impervious to fear - but still vulnerable to nerve pain, I fretted.
Nevertheless, as I drove through Joshua Tree to my dentist's office, I drank in the beauty of the high desert: the mountains, the yuccas, the crazy Dr. Seuss-looking Joshua trees. My mother was sending me long-distance Reiki from Indiana, and I decided today would go great. It was all just mind over matter, right?
As I pulled up, though, a long line of people stood in front of the office. My heart skipped a beat: maybe we'd have to reschedule!
I stepped out of the car, an inquiring look on my face.
"They don't open back up until 2," an older woman called to me. "We're just waiting."
Oh. That was when my appointment was. In that case, I'd sit in my air conditioning a little longer. I got back in the car.
And suddenly, I felt a stab of real fear.
"They're going to get up in your mouth with a drill, you know," my anxiety demon, Griselda, hissed. I rarely heard from her anymore, but when I did, it was serious. "They're going to drill, drill, drill, baby, right into your cracked teeth! Right down to the nerves! Any teensy little slip could set those nerves on fire all over again! Why, all you'd have to do is breathe funny!" Griselda cackled gleefully.
I reached desperately for my vape and puffed like a chimney. And the line grew; now there were at least eight adults waiting to get in, and two children.
Sure enough, right at 2, a hygienist showed up to unlock the door, and I counted a dozen people trickling in. I decided to let the line go down a little, though I thought of just driving off: disappearing into the desert, never to be heard from again.
No, that wasn't fair. I'd driven my partner's car; he might want it back sometime. Or, you know, he might want me back, and probably with fixed teeth.
So eventually I marshaled my courage and went inside, too. When I hit the small waiting room, I found every chair occupied and the three-person leather couch holding four. And the two kids, who I pegged at about six, were darting back and forth across the floor, squealing. HGTV blared from an awkwardly angled screen above us, and someone was eating a very fragrant curry from the restaurant across the street.
Still panicky, I immediately began to feel claustrophobic, too. But I signed in and sat down as quickly as I could when someone's name was called and a chair freed up.
Sitting there tightly, I was not feeling impervious or implacable - not at all. I texted my brother: "I'm at the dentist. I f***ing hate this so much." He told me he'd spent half the day helping our step-dad fix an overflowed toilet. Yeesh: I tried to put my afternoon in perspective.
As I waited, someone's car alarm went off. Three people went outside to make sure it wasn't theirs - propping the door open to the 110° heat - while the vehicle's actual owner just sat there, talking on a gigantic blue satellite phone. Finally she strolled out the door and pressed a button - causing her SUV not to stop honking, but to instead honk at twice the previous frequency.
Beads of sweat began to form on my brow. Where the hell were all those meds I'd taken? Why weren't they doing anything?! Spontaneously, I stood up and moved to the receptionist's counter. "If you guys are running behind or anything, I'd be happy to reschedule," I said, like I was doing them a favor.
Maybe I was: The receptionist let out a big, grateful sigh. "Yes. Uhhh, hang on just a moment - I'll let you know." She nodded at me to sit back down.
I felt the dizzy, shaky beginnings of a potential panic attack. Quick, Sally, I thought. Distract yourself.
Let's see: I'm not cleaning up an overflowed toilet. I'm not cleaning up an overflowed toilet, I repeated to myself. What other obnoxious things was I lucky not to be doing? I began to list them: unlike one very trying day about a year ago, I wasn't editing an experimental-fiction narrative about dolphin-human hybrids. A good start!
What else? I wasn't sitting through a government hearing. I wasn't trying to put on spandex workout leggings in 100° weather. I wasn't at dinner with someone eating shrimp. (I have a terror of seafood.) I wasn't trying to wax my -
Suddenly a pounding disco beat jolted me out of my thoughts. I heard a voice singing:
"He told me
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
Just as the chorus began to repeat, a second recording of the song began again, jarringly, from the beginning - on top of the version that was already on. What the hell was this?!
It only took a second: those two kids were each playing some kind of club version of "The Witch Doctor" on their iPads. At considerable volume. In a crowded waiting room.
Lord, I really don't freaking need this, I thought, feeling jangly.
Operating as one, every adult in the room raised their eyes and met each other's gaze with the same expression of disbelief and horror. That is, every adult except the kids' mother. She was still gabbing away obliviously.
"Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
On and on it went, as the rest of us could only shoot daggers with our eyes. I don't like to call out others' behavior as a rule, but our isolated little pocket of San Bernardino County is very much a "shoot first and ask questions later" kind of place. You never know who you might not want to provoke.
Chorus after chorus repeated, jarringly out of sync with each other, as the desert heat poured in, the outside car alarm blared out of time with the awful music, and the fug of too many sweaty bodies packed close together reached a swell.
I felt my heart rate crank itself up a notch. Meds, where are you?! I wondered desperately. Long-distance Reiki? Hello?!
Finally, a formidable older woman across the room took a deep breath and moved forward in her chair, threatening to speak. Still on the phone, the children's mom clocked her immediately, and she placed a hand over the receiver of her phone.
"Buddy, turn that down a little bit, please," she cooed to her son in a baby voice.
The six-year-old tilted his head back and roared up to the heavens. "I - ALREADY - DID!" he bellowed from four feet away, his lips blue from a Popsicle that was dripping onto the floor.
"Turn it down some more, then," said the kids' mom, her voice still a sing-song. "Turn it off now."
The kid looked up and smirked. "Yeah, I'm not doing that," he said, skipping away.
His mother made no protest and went back to her conversation. The hair on my arms stood up.
"We're not doing that!" his sister agreed loudly from the couch. Her brother jumped up to join her, and they flipped over onto their backs, sticking their legs up on the back of the couch. Sharing some secret signal, they both immediately turned their music ("music") up all the way and began to scream the song, kicking their little legs in time to the music.
"Ooh (kick) ee (kick) ooh ah ah (kick-kick)
Ting (kick) tang (kick) walla walla bing-bang (upside-down bike-riding movement)!"
And repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat.
My tension bubbled over, and I let out a small snort in spite of myself. It was awful, yes, but also undeniably funny. I was laughing at the kids; laughing at their totally checked-out mother. This was the most exquisitely, magnificently bratty public behavior I had witnessed in a very long time. In a way, it was impressive.
I mean, come on - blaring not one, but two out-of-sync disco mixes of "The Witch Doctor," screaming at and defying their mother, and kicking the furniture while hanging on it upside down - in a dentist's waiting room full of people?!
Absolutely wild.
"Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
But then my laughter faded, and anxiety crept back over me.
Suddenly a teenage girl barged in and snatched the phone away from the little kids' mother. "Mom, that is your car doing that and you have got to shut it off!" she exploded.
Our necks all craned.
"Someone else will get it," she responded in that same spaced-out little-girl tone.
Now I felt my heart really step on the gas.
"But you have the keys!" her daughter shrieked. "Who else would get it?!"
"He told me
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
Shut up, shut up, shut up, I thought, half-crazed.
"Walla walla bing-bang!" the little boy yelled. "Walla walla bing-bang!" Right-side up now, he kicked the nice leather couch with glee.
"No, it's noooot!" his sister squawked. "It goes 'walla walla bing-bang!'"
"That's what I said, you blibbering idiot!" the little boy screeched directly into her face.
My blood pressure climbed as we all looked at the kids' mother, who was still talking peacefully on her oversized satellite phone.
"You're just a dumb butt face!" the little boy taunted over the music.
Wounded to the core, his sister gasped. "Your butt is a face!" she exclaimed tearfully. "And your dumb face is a butt!" It was a stalemate - a real Old West standoff, here in the last bastion of the Great Frontier.
"Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
I have to get out of here, I thought as the beat pounded into my brain. I can't do this. I cannot be in this room anymo -
"Sally?" the nurse called at that very moment. "Let's get you rescheduled!"
Oh, thank God. Thank you, God! Dizzily, I stood up at made my way to the counter, then out the door, then to my car.
And wouldn't you know it: ten minutes after I got home, all those meds kicked in and I descended down into the deepest and most peaceful calm I've felt in months.
So now I'm sitting on my couch at 3:30 in the morning, whistling - you got it:
"Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooh, ee, ooh ah ah,
Ting-tang walla walla bing-bang!"
Let's hope my Thursday appointment goes a little better!