Is it wrong to love my dentist?

As usual, I went to the dentist this past Saturday. I think I'm going to start calling it my weekend home. My dentist is so nice! He actually seems sorry that my teeth are in such bad shape, like it's his fault and not mine that I've only been to the dentist three times since my parents stopped paying for it. (Okay, I'm considering each round of visits to be one time, but you know what I mean.)

Each time I've gone, he's given me a better discount. First it was 25-30% (each item was discounted separately). This last time-- 50%! I think he is telling me that I need less work than he is actually doing, too (to make me feel better????). Twice now he has clearly said that he was going to work on two teeth and then worked on three.

Not only does he do more work than he says, he gives me some service for free each time. The first three times, it was scaling. (Hopefully, no one is eating while reading that my teeth had to be scaled three times. Gross, I know.) This past time, he raised the gum line on a tooth that had a lower gum line than all the others.

I want to get my teeth whitened, but I kind of don't want to bring it up. I mean, what if he's giving me this great deal because he thinks I can't afford it, then I ask about a vanity procedure that costs $800? Or, what if he thinks I'm expecting a deal on it, too? Hmmm. I'll have to talk to his niece and she what she thinks.

I thought this was the last bunch, but his assistants kept asking him about another tooth and he told them he'd do it "next time". At any rate, if he works on the tooth I think they must have been talking about, he will have replaced all of my existing fillings (most of which were from the late 70s to early 80s and therefore past their use-by dates) as well as put in the new ones.

Running total- a hair under $2000.

Next time, I promise non-dental content. I finished my mother's socks, but my sis still has my camera.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of my sister, I was tutoring a student today and he mentioned that he wanted to go to Sapporo. I off-handedly said that Sapporo is far from Tokyo which surprised him that I knew. So I told him that my sister (in the next classroom over)'s father is from Japan, since that's more interesting than "I can look at a map".

This lead to a very long discussion of how it is possible that we have different fathers (far too long for a teenager who lives most of the year in San Diego, but whatever). When he finally accepted that it could be possible, he asked me how I could be friends with her. Anne and I are thinking of having a Dynasty-style hair-pulling cat fight for his benefit. Hee.