"Is It Safe?" No.

Had a dentist's appointment tonight.

It's like they're trying to make my experience miserable. Everything from telling me my patient information isn't in their "new" system (for the third time) to informing me that they intend to take x-rays annually to afterwards, where another patient was standing at the reception desk as I was desperately trying to sign out just regaling the two workers there with his long, laborious diatribe about — I shit you not — how the pyramid on the back of the U. S. dollar bill is a secret insignia of the Illuminati, an organization dedicated to creating a global police state by means of terrorism and Satanic conspiracies.

Now, I'm a pretty easy going guy. I'll permit you to have yours so long as you let me have mine, but this was a bit much. If I were a less patient man, I would have interrupted him at the five minute mark with a loud, unapologetic "Excuse me! I'm trying to get the hell out of here, and I'd rather not wait for you to finish your hallucinatory lecture on the works of Robert Anton Wilson. So would one of you ladies like to give me an 'OK to go' signal now?"

But no. I'm non-confrontational, and, additionally, I was amazed at how long it was going on. I was thinking he'd make his little "Hey. 'Novus ordo seclorum.' Eh? Eh? Think about it." speech and then leave. But he stuck around. And the two women were just engaged by it. They were asking questions. Getting clarification. Writing down the URLs to his favorite topical websites. (prisonplanet.tv was the only one I caught. No <a href>s. Sorry. I'm reporting, not endorsing.)

Eventually, the guy took his leave and I was finally permitted to get the hell out of there.

And in six months when I go back (Ha! Sadly, this is probably inevitable.) they're going to do more of this same type of amateurish buffoonery.

Also, "amateurish buffoonery" is something that should only ever be said by someone who's survived a depression. Hand me my liniment, sonny.