Cell phone plus dentist’s office equals recipe for disaster
Since cell phones first became mass-produced and affordable to the general public, there have been complaints about the way people use them.
It is not uncommon for people to talk about highly personal matters in public places or for a phone with an obnoxious ringtone to go off in the middle of a lecture, concert or movie.
I have also had my fair share of calls from people who were brushing their teeth, bathing, or sitting on the toilet while talking to me. I also once witnessed a woman discussing confidential financial matters over the phone in a crowded airport. She used a headset so small it was barely visible, and since she was sitting facing me and looking in my general direction, it gave me the eerie sense that she was talking to me. Easygoing as I normally am, I considered that a slight breech of etiquette.
However, I think there are people out there who can easily one-up my experience with a worse one.
Dentists at Green Oaks Family Dentistry clinic in Arlington, Texas, have complained that lack of cell-phone etiquette has gone to an even higher degree: their patients talk on cell phones while they clean patients’ teeth.
Why anyone would want to do that is beyond me. That’s like trying to do ab crunches while getting your appendix taken out. That part of your body is out of commission for the time being.
While I’m at the dentist, I don’t like to talk to anyone — with or without my cell phone. Most words in any language are difficult to articulate in a semi-lucid fashion while trying to hold my mouth completely still in a wide-open position. Meanwhile, the dentist is attacking my teeth with a variety of gadgets that resemble something from a 1940s sci-fi movie and produce sounds that make nails on a chalkboard seem like soothing music.
I don’t want to give the good doctor any reason to miss and hit something other than a tooth. To make things worse, most dentists I have gone to seem to think cleaning my teeth is no different from cutting my hair. They attempt to converse with me, which usually goes something like this:
Dentist: “So, where do you go to school?”
Me: “Hmfa bwah bwah”
Dentist: “What are you studying?”
Me: “Huhwa wah”
The dentist, who must have had advanced training in the Gibberish language, proceeds to ask me when I’m graduating, what I want to do after that, where I work, how I like it, what my parents do, how my dog is, and other mundane questions.
I have no way to tell whether they can accurately guess that “Enrh dweay effshew” is my attempt to say “NDSU,” or if I’m trying to tell them I dropped out of college to work for the circus.
Why on earth would anyone want to bring a cell phone into that picture?
Do they honestly think their bosses, colleagues, clients, friends or significant others are so desperate to hear from them that they would be willing to put up with the high-pitched whirring of the dentist’s instruments and unintelligible grunts? It’s possible to wait a half-hour for the periodontist to finish the job before you scroll through your list of contacts and commence chatting.
Yes, everyone is very busy these days and the time you’re sitting in the dentist’s chair may seem like a perfect opportunity to get something else done and talk to one more person, but I’m sure the other person has a busy day, too.
He or she has to get stuff done, and probably wants to do something more productive than hear someone try to produce awkward vocalizations that make a toddler’s first attempts to speak sound as articulate as a trained orator. Call back when the conversation on both ends has the possibility to be remotely fruitful.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum