This is about my halfwit dentist's office

I need a new dentist.

This is not to say that there's anything wrong per se with my current dentist. I like him well enough, and he seems pretty on the ball.

Nonetheless, I need a new dentist.

My pretty-on-the-ball dentist decided, after exactly one second of looking into my mouth on my very first visit to him, that I should get all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. Seemed pretty excessive at the time, but hey: he's the dentist.

I proceed to get a "pano" taken, which is a panoramic X-ray, the X-ray equivalent of fingerprinting. Instead of inking a fingertip and rolling it from side to side on a piece of paper to get a two-dimensional map of the three dimensional topology of my whirls and loops, a pano X-ray involves the X-ray camera moving from one side of my face to the other, taking a long two-dimensional X-ray image of the three dimensional topology of my teeth and gums. If you took a full set of dentures, magically turned them into rubber, and flattened them out so you could see every tooth from the same direction, you'd have an idea of what a panoramic X-ray looks like. It is a painless procedure that takes all of about forty-five seconds to perform.

Everyone I speak to asserts that it is a very expensive process. I don't doubt it. As such, insurance companies apparently hate to pay for them, and as a result they comp their members one pano every four years or so.

OK. I can live with that.

Since they are of an exceedingly high cost, they are also of an exceedingly high value. They don't exactly slap your pano down on a Xerox and make a copy for anyone who might need one.

The story thus far: the dentist has my pano, the oral surgeon who will perform the extraction needs to see it at my consultation. Many of you already see where this is going. Dan – I'm looking in your direction. You of all people know exactly where this is going.

So I schedule the consult for today: Friday, February 11. I have the day off of work. Erica has the day off of work. I look up how to find the surgeon's office: it's preciesly across the street from the Aladdin's in Lakewood, one of our favorite restaurants. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

On a lark, I decide to call my dentist's office and confirm if I need them to do anything before I see my surgeon. Specifically, I'm curious about the pano. Not the procedure itself. Just the film; the actual physical X-ray photograph of my teeth. I'm gonna need that to see my surgeon. They tell me they will mail the film to me.

That was two weeks ago. It never shows up.

On Monday, February 7, I call my dentist's office back. I explain my situation again. Again, they state that I do in fact need my pano in order to get my wisdom teeth extracted. Anne, the receptionist, informs me that mailing panos to patients is unreliable due to a high rate of human error and/or forgetfullness. Instead, she encourages me to physically visit the office and pick up the pano in person. I am told that they will be ready Tuesday. I tell her that I won't be able to make it to the office on Tuesday. I am reassured that any time from Tuesday onward is acceptible.

OK. I can do that.

On Wednesday, February 9, I stop by. They are closed. And by closed, I mean no one was there. I could have just gone in, helped myself to some dental picks, grabbed my file out of the cabinet, and left without a word. OK, whatever. They're closed at 6:10 PM, and yet they still claim to support appointments on evenings and weekends. I didn't schedule an appointment to pick up my X-ray or anything. If the last patient of the day left at 5:58, I don't see the harm in jetting the hell out of there. It was very inconvenient, but not problematic.

On Friday, D-Day, I wake up early on my day off and Erica drives us back to the dentist. It's 11 AM. This time, at least there is a hand-written sign stating that there is "a manditory meeting" today. They'll be open later, though: one and a half hours after my surgical consult is scheduled to start.

Fuck.

Much calling of random phone numbers ensued. No one was around, and no one was going to be around until later that afternoon. Long story short, my dentist and I aren't communicating, haven't been communicating apparently, and I had to reschedule my consult. For next fucking week. My tooth is killing me, but only when I chew, swallow, or yawn. Lord almighty, it's eleven hours later and I'm still pissed off about all of this.

I need a new dentist. Maybe one who doesn't keep banker's hours, or who mails me documents when I ask for them, or let's me know if they're modifying their schedule.

If anyone knows a good dentist in the Cleveland-Lakewood area, I'd like to hear from you. Right now I'm looking at Rhodes, Rinaldi, Marino, and Nassif, but I haven't even really begun my research.

But I assure you, the research will begin.